Tamil Nadu BJP leader SG Suryah remanded to 14-day judicial custody; Nirmala Sitharaman, BL Santosh condemn arrest

Tamil Nadu BJP secretary SG Suryah was remanded to 14-day judicial custody and will soon be shifted to Chennai central prison.

The BJP leader was arrested late Friday night following a complaint by the CPI(M) Madurai district committee on a tweet by the former against the Madurai MP and CPI(M) leader Su Venkitesan.

The BJP leader had tweeted that Su Venkitesan was silent on the death of a conservancy worker who belongs to the Dalit community who was allegedly forced by a CPI(M) councilor to enter into a sewage in Pendanam in Madurai district, the BJP leader said.

A CPI(M) functionary complained to the police against this stating that Pendanam was in Cuddalore district and that no such deaths have taken place due to the reasons raised by Suryah.

Union Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman lashed out against the Tamil Nadu government on the arrest of the BJP leader and said that this shows the two-facedness of the DMK and its ally the CPI(M) on an important social issue. She asked whether it was fair enough to arrest Suryah for raising such questions on the death of a conservancy worker instead of taking appropriate action against such deaths.

Condemning the arrest of SG Suryah, BJP national general secretary (organisation) BL Santosh said that the DMK was still not able to digest the arrest of minister, Senthil Balaji. He said that BJP was a political party that had taken on the draconian emergency and would not take this lying down.

BJP Tamil Nadu state president K. Annamalai said that Chief Minister M. K. Stalin was "using" the state machinery to "curtail" free speech.

"Getting jittery for the slightest criticisms was unbecoming of a democratically elected leader. He said that Stalin`s actions were signs of the making of an autocratic leader," Annamalai said.