Have children immediately after marriage: Stalin to newly-weds

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday favoured young people having children immediately following marriage and said a higher population appeared to be the criterion to get more MPs.

Addressing a wedding, Stalin, also the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president said that years ago, newlyweds were advised to not have children immediately following marriage.

However, the same thing must not be advised now and also there was no need for that. It is because a situation has now arisen, according to which only a higher population would ensure more MPs as the delimitation exercise would be on the basis of population, Stalin said.

Tamil Nadu paid attention to population control and succeeded and that was the reason for the state's plight today, he added.

"I will not tell you to not have children hastily, have children immediately; but give them beautiful Tamil names," he said, directly appealing to the bride and bridegroom.

Further, he said that the question of delimitation is related to Tamil Nadu's rights and protecting its interests and hence, the matter must not be evaluated politically.

The Union government is planning to implement the three-language policy through compulsion and similarly in the delimitation exercise, it is attempting to cut down the number of seats for Tamil Nadu, Stalin alleged, addressing the function in Nagapattinam.

Against this background an all party meeting has been organised on March 5 on the proposed delimitation exercise and most parties out of 40 have confirmed their participation and a few others have said they would not be taking part. Appealing to such parties, the chief minister said they should not evaluate the issue through the prism of politics.

Bharatiya Janata Party and former Union minister G K Vaasan led TMC (Moopanar) were the key parties that have said they would not take part in the meeting.

"I would like to appeal to them, please give a thought to it, this is not an issue between the DMK and your party," said the CM.

The issue is all about Tamil Nadu and its interests and rights and hence parties that have declared that they would not take part should also participate, he appealed.