A day after losing to dissident leader and Independent candidate T.T.V. Dhinakaran in the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar by-election, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on Monday chose to focus its attack on him.
After an hour-long meeting of senior office-bearers and Ministers attended by Chief Minister and the party co-coordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister and co-ordinator O. Panneerselvam at the party headquarters here, the AIADMK expelled five pro-Dhinakaran functionaries from the party and relieved four more supporters of their position of district secretaries.
Both Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam accused Mr. Dhinakaran of having resorted to “deception, irregularities and gimmicks” to win the byelection, where the AIADMK candidate E. Madhusudhanan lost badly. Mr Panneerselvam said his party was for the Election Commission to institute a “thorough probe” into the allegation of the Dhinakaran camp having distributed currency notes of ₹ 20 as coupons to be exchanged later for providing ₹ 10,000 eventually to every voter.
Mr Dhinakaran dismissed the allegation as “baseless” and made counter allegation that the ruling camp had supplied ₹ 120 crore to voters in the constituency. “Let the Election Commission go into this too,” he told reporters in the evening.
Those who were expelled from the party were V. P. Kalairajan and “Popular” V. Muthiah, district secretaries in charge of South Chennai (North) and Tirunelveli; V. Pugazhendhi, secretary of the Karnataka State unit; Nanjil Sampath and C.R. Saraswathi, both spokespersons of the party.
The four other district secretaries who lost their positions were P. Vetrivel of North Chennai (north); N.G. Parthiban of Vellore (east); M. Rangasamy of Thanjavur and Thanga Tamilselvan of Theni, all disqualified legislators. It is learnt that they were not expelled from the party as that could give them the leeway to support any party in the Assembly should their disqualification be set aside by the court.
Reacting to the development, Mr Thanga Tamilselvan criticised the action and contended that Mr Panneerselvam and Mr Palaniswami had “no locus standi” to take action against him and others as there was “no provision in the party constitution” drafted during the period of the founder M.G. Ramachandran for the posts of co-ordinator and co co-ordinator. “We will move the High Court against this decision of theirs,” he told The Hindu.
The Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister reiterated their charge of Mr Dhinakaran having entered into a “tacit understanding” with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s working president M.K. Stalin for the purpose of ensuring the defeat of the AIADMK. The rebel leader poopoohed their statement and argued that “hardcore supporters” of the DMK and the AIADMK would not, at any cost, vote for anyone other than those put up by their respective parties.
Referring to Mr Dhinakaran congratulating the DMK’s MP M.K. Kanimozhi and former Union Minister A. Raja on their acquittal in the 2G spectrum allocation case, Mr. Panneerselvam asked “would not this show how Mr Dhinakaran has been betraying the party, given that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had “exposed the 2G scam.”
Mr Thanga Tamilselvan asked when the Supreme Court had upheld conviction of Jayalalithaa, V.K. Sasikala and two others in a disproportionate assets case, “didn’t his supporters [Mr Panneerselvam’s] celebrate it?”
