Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K Annamalai has quizzed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government today over the implementation of the recently enacted online gaming ban following a suicide of a man in Tenkasi’s Sankarankovil due to losses in online rummy.

Annamalai took to Twitter saying, “I was deeply saddened to hear that a young man named Mariselvam committed suicide after losing money in online rummy near Tenkasi Sankarankovil. My deepest condolences to his family.”

தென்காசி சங்கரன்கோவில் அருகே, மாரிசெல்வம் என்ற இளைஞர், ஆன்லைன் ரம்மியில் பணத்தை இழந்ததால் தற்கொலை செய்து கொண்ட செய்தியறிந்து மிகுந்த வருத்தமடைந்தேன். அவரது குடும்பத்தினருக்கு ஆழ்ந்த இரங்கல்களைத் தெரிவித்துக் கொள்கிறேன்.

இணைய விளையாட்டுக்களை ஒழுங்குபடுத்த, தமிழ்நாடு இணைய…

— K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) June 28, 2023

He went on to say that the state government had announced in April that they would form a five-member Online Gaming Authority soon but even after two months no news of its formation has come to light.

Annamalai added in his tweet that the Online Gaming Authority is to include a retired chief secretary of the state as its chairman, a retired police officer of not less than IG rank and a top psychologist. He then accused the incumbent government for staging a drama and hiding their incompetence to properly ban online rummy.

“Another life has been lost due to the lack of measures to implement the Emergency Act. On behalf of BJP4Tamilnadu, I urge the Tamil Nadu government to take steps to solve the problem instead of issuing announcements just for publicity,” Annamalai added.

Tamil Nadu witnessed an increase in suicide cases in the last couple of years due to people losing money in online rummy. This led to demands from the people to ban it.

In response, the DMK government formed the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Act, 2022 aiming to ban all online games having any monetary aspect. The new law treats all games alike, be it games of skill or games of chance.