The “ousted” deputy general secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK-Amma) T.T.V. Dhinakaran on Monday effected another round of appointments, removing some of his key detractors from party posts in the process.
This time, Ministers P. Thangamani, S.P. Velumani, K.T. Rajenthra Bhalaji and Vellamandi N. Natarajan were sacked from their positions of secretaries of the district units of Namakkal, Coimbatore (Rural), Virudhunagar and Tiruchi (Urban) respectively. Mr. Thangamani and Mr. Velumani were also removed from the positions of organising secretaries. He also eased out Madhavaram V. Moorthy, T.K.M. Chinnayya and Mukkur N. Subramanian, all former Ministers, from the post of organising secretaries, to which Mr. Dhinakaran himself appointed them early this month. On Monday morning, Mr. Moorthy and Mr. Chinnayya attended a meeting of the unified AIADMK held at the party headquarters in Royapettah.
The new district secretaries were S. Anbazhagan (Namakkal); K. Sugumar, former Member of Parliament (Coimbatore Rural); and S.G. Subramanian, Member of Legislative Assembly (Virudhunagar). The Tiruchi district unit has been divided into three units: Urban, North and South. J. Srinivasan, R. Manoharan and Thottiam Rajasekar, the last two being former MLAs, were appointed secretaries of the newly created units respectively.
Many other functionaries including secretary of the literary wing B. Valarmathi and organising secretaries Saidai S. Duraisamy, Mythili Thirunavukkarasu, B.V. Ramana, V. Somasundaram and Budhichandran were removed from their posts.
‘No authority’
Ms. Valarmathi questioned the authority of Mr. Dhinakaran in removing “loyalists of Puratchi Thalaivar [AIADMK founder and former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran] and Puratchi Thalaivi [Jayalalithaa]” from the party. “He has absolutely no power to act against members like me, ” she added. The district secretaries of the Nilgiris, Tirupur (Urban) and Ramanathapuram – K.R. Arjunan, MP, M.S.M. Anandan, former Minister, and M.A. Muniasamy – were replaced with S. Kalaichelvan, C. Sivasami, former MP, and V.T.N. Anand, according to releases issued by Mr. Dhinakaran.
