Chennai: Factions of Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) and O Panneerselvam (OPS) got into a tussle while paying tributes for patriarch of the Thevar community and freedom fighter, Pasumpon Muthuramalingam Thevar, in Ramanathapuram district on Friday.
Every year, between October 28 and 30, the birth and death anniversaries of Muthuramalingam are observed. While OPS, belonging to the Thevar community, will be there with his supporters on October 30, EPS decided to pay tribute to the leader’s statue in Chennai but his senior MLAs who also belong to the Thevar community were directed to go to Ramanathapuram.
V K Sasikala,who also belongs to the Thevar community, will attend the programme at Ramanathapuram on October 30. Meanwhile chief minister M K Stalin will leave for Madurai on Saturday to pay his respects.
Responding to a question on whether Ramanthapuram in Tamil Nadu’s south where OPS is stronger is not conducive for EPS to come, senior leader R B Udhayakumar said, “These are rumours, there is no opposition to Edapaddiyar (EPS). Today, we didn’t give space for all that and we decided we will let it go and just focus on paying tributes.”
Udhayakumar said in Madurai that he and other AIADMK leaders were there for the tribute as representatives of EPS. “We can pay a tribute anywhere. The place is not important,” he said, adding that late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa has also paid tributes in Chennai to Muthuramalingam.
{{/usCountry}}Udhayakumar said in Madurai that he and other AIADMK leaders were there for the tribute as representatives of EPS. “We can pay a tribute anywhere. The place is not important,” he said, adding that late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa has also paid tributes in Chennai to Muthuramalingam.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier both factions had moved the Madurai bench of the Madras HC to access the 13kg gold armour which is taken out of a bank locker annually to adorn the Thevar statue in Ramanathapuram. But the court citing the pending case in the Supreme Court on the leadership tussle between EPS and OPS, decided to give the custody to the Ramanathapuram district revenue official.
The armour was presented by Jayalalithaa in 2014 to the Muthuramalingam memorial. Traditionally the treasurer of the AIADMK, a post which OPS was expelled from in July, operates the bank locker in Madurai to take the armour out, hand it over to the trustees of the memorial and put it back in. “Since 2014, we have been doing it continuously and now they (OPS and supporters) have created an obstruction to that also,” Udhayakumar said.