TNNChennai: Amid the escalating war of words between the ruling party and the principal opposition DMK, CPI state executive committee on Saturday condemned former minister and DMK MLA Anitha Radhakrishnan and minister Aadhav Arjuna for their remarks, saying public representatives must uphold political decency.The committee criticised Anitha Radhakrishnan for making derogatory remarks about chief minister C Joseph Vijay’s personal life at a public meeting in Tuticorin recently. While political parties have every right to criticise govts and each other’s policies in a democracy, dragging the personal lives of political leaders into public discourse in a derogatory manner amounted to crossing the line, it said.The committee said police, however, should have avoided coercive action including arresting Anitha Radhakrishnan on Friday. He was released on bail later in the day.CPI, which supports the TVK govt, also slammed PWD minister Aadhav Arjuna for his remark at a party meeting that “we will not leave the Karur incident without settling the score” with DMK. Such a statement was unacceptable and did not befit a person holding a ministerial office, the statement said. The minister made the remark during the induction of former AIADMK ministers C Vijayabaskar and M R Vijayabhaskar into TVK in a function on Thursday.Stressing the need to preserve political civility and democratic values, the CPI urged all those in public life to exercise restraint in their public speeches.
