Not even 6 months into swearing in DMK has proved the accusations of the party being anti-women. In a scuffle during the local body elections a woman was disrobed in the middle of the street by DMK thugs in Tenkasi. Even though the video has gone viral in social media, so far no action has been taken on the person who outraged the modesty of the woman.

Recently local body elections of the newly formed districts were conducted. After the results were announced elections for positions in Panchayat boards were also conducted. As a part of this, votes were polled in Tenkasi district to elect District Panchayat Council Chairman and Vice-Chairman. While DMK’s Thamizh Selvi won the election for the Chairman post, there was some trouble in conducting the election for the VC post.

Guru Murthy backed by DMK and AIADMK’s Saravanan were in competition for the position. When the votes were being cast by the ward members, reportedly supporters of Saravanan were not allowed to cast their votes. A scuffle ensued during which the saree of a woman councilor of ADMK was pulled by men. Those who disrobed the affected woman in public are said to be DMK men.

The video of the woman’s saree being pulled in the midst of scores of men has gone viral in social media. Yet no action has been taken on the man by either police or the party. DMK has a culture of harassing women and treating them as mere objects. Late CM Jayalalithaa was disrobed in the assembly when she was the leader of opposition in 1989.

She was bullied by the DMK MLAs and the current Minister for Water Resources, Durai Murugan in 1989 is said to have pulled and torn her saree similar to how Dushasana disrobed Draupadi. Even when they were not in power DMK functionaries harassed women and earned the “anti-women” title. They had attacked a woman running a beauty parlour, manhandled a woman who posed questions to MK Stalin and attacked a duo of woman shopkeepers. There is an endless list of atrocities and it appears to be growing after DMK came to power.