Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik said here on Monday that parting of ways by the former Union Minister G.K. Vasan could not be considered a split in the Tamil Nadu unit as the “majority” of the leaders and the cadres were with the party.
Other heavyweights in the Tamil Nadu Congress, including the former Union Ministers P. Chidambaram, Jayanthi Natarajan, K.V. Thangkabalu and Su. Thirunavukkarasar, have stayed back with the Congress, leading to questions on whether the rebellion can be called a “vertical split.”
Meanwhile, the AICC came out with a statement that Mr. Vasan was being ‘expelled’ from the Congress for making inappropriate statements on the leadership.
Mr. Wasnik rejected suggestions that Mr. Vasan’s parting of ways was reflective of the weakness of the central leadership of the party in the wake of the debacle in the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress had scored a duck in Tamil Nadu during the Lok Sabha elections in May. (With inputs from PTI)
