Fissures appear to have emerged among the family members of late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s jailed aide V.K. Sasikala over the running of the affairs of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), launched by her nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran. The affected parties have taken to social media to express their resentment.
P. Vetrivel, disqualified MLA and a staunch supporter of Mr. Dhinakaran, on Monday wrote a Facebook post attacking Jeyanandh Dhivakaran, son of Sasikala’s brother. Subsequently, Mr. Dhinakaran sought to broker peace between them and called upon his supporters to remain united.
According to a party source, the differences were primarily a result of a perception among Mr. Dhinakaran’s supporters that Mr. Dhivakaran and his son Jeyanandh were attempting to hijack the party, whereas the other side believed Mr. Dhinakaran was taking the lead, ignoring Sasikala’s other relatives.
It all began when, in a series of posts on social media over the past three days, Mr. Jeyanandh made indirect remarks expressing dissatisfaction over certain “mistakes.” He went on to say that he didn’t want to “act politically”, triggering speculation that he was referring to the AMMK.
However, in another post, he said, “When I had not specifically mentioned the AMMK, why were some people reacting?”
In an apparent response, Mr. Vetrivel hailed Mr. Dhinakaran’s leadership and said he and others would not accept the leadership of anyone other than Sasikala and Mr. Dhinakaran.
A source confirmed that differences arose when an advertisement was issued by Mr. Dhinakaran’s supporters in a newspaper regarding an AMMK public meeting in Karur, in which Sasikala’s image was supposedly missing. Even the T-shirt worn by a former Minister did not have Sasikala’s image on it.
Neither Mr. Vetrivel nor Mr. Jeyanandh could be reached for comment. Later in the day, Mr. Dhinakaran, in a statement, referred to “some social media posts that attempted to divert the party’s objective” and called upon his supporters to ignore them. “We should not allow divisiveness or anything other than the truth amongst us,” he said.
