Chennai: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on August 4 charged the AIADMK government with "misusing" the provisions of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) to curb political activities in the state.

Addressing a public meeting, party president M Karunanidhi said the state government was using the provisions of the POTA to arrest her political adversaries and to "sidetrack" the attention of people from the burning issues the state was facing.

When weavers were starving and farmers were not getting water for irrigation, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was invoking the provisions of POTA to arrest politicians, he said in an obvious reference to the arrests of MDMK chief Vaiko and Tamil National Movement leader P Nedumaran.

On his direction to partymen to open gruel centre to the benefit of the weavers, Karunanidhi alleged that Jayalalithaa used "abusive language" against him without knowing the intention of his action. As the duty of any responsible Opposition, the aim of opening such centres was only to lessen the burden of the government, he said.

PTI