Striking a conciliatory note, senior AIADMK leader and Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha M. Thambidurai on Wednesday said that T.T.V. Dhinakaran’s assertions that he would send the government packing were merely an emotional outburst.
“Whatever he (Dhinakaran) said was simply due to his emotional connect with the party. I don’t think any AIADMK member or sympathiser will do anything to destabilise the government,” Mr. Thambidurai told The Hindu .
Mr. Dhinkaran on Tuesday called the general council meeting as “null and void”, and for the first time, he changed his tone and tenor to say emphatically that given a chance, he would dismantle the present government. “As per the party’s bylaws, only the general secretary can convene the general council meeting. In the absence of Ms. Sasikala, the meeting itself is not valid. This cannot be called a general council meeting, but is merely a public meeting.”
With 113 MLAs with Edappadi K. Palaniswamy and O. Paneerselvam faction, just four short of the majority mark of 117, they now believe that truce is at a striking distance.
“All of them are our brothers and colleagues. I firmly believe they will come back to the party,” Mr. Thambidurai said. Explaining the logic behind his optimism, he said, “See, at one point, O. Paneerselvam too voted against the Edapaddi government. But today, they are working together. And none of the MLAs who are with Dhinakaran have voted against the party even once on the floor of the house.”
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Recalling a similar struggle within the party after its founder M.G. Ramachandran’s death, Mr. Thambidurai said that the party will live to see another day.
“No cadre has left the party to join any other forum. They may be in this group or that, but the party cadre base is intact,” he said.
He also rubbished the claims of DMK working President M.K. Stalin that the AIADMK government has been reduced to a minority.
“How can he say so? Has he counted how many MLAs we have? He himself has said that floor test in Assembly is essential, so he should wait for that before making such rhetorical statements,” Mr. Thambidurai added.
