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Expelled AIADMK leader joins DMK
Former AIADMK minister Thoppu Venkatachalam, who was expelled from the party, joined the DMK on Sunday with hundreds of his supporters
Former AIADMK minister Thoppu Venkatachalam, who was expelled from the party, joined the DMK on Sunday with hundreds of his supporters.
Besides Venkatachalam, former AIADMK MP and MLA PR Sundaram and others joined the DMK in the presence of its president and Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin, the party said in a release here.
It is a boost to the ruling party trying to strengthen its base in the western region ahead of the local body polls slated for later this year.
The Supreme Court has set a deadline for civic polls to be conducted in nine districts before September 15.
Venkatachalam’s joining the DMK follows an exodus to the ruling party of AIADMK functionaries expelled for their truck with the ousted VK Sasikala.
A senior AIADMK leader admitted that since their loss in the assembly elections, they have been worried about their cadre joining the DMK.
“People moving was expected especially after the DMK gave cabinet berths to former AIADMK members,” the leader said.
He said deputy leader of opposition O Panneerselvam addressed the issue at the AIADMK meeting held on Friday.
According to the leader, Panneerselvam said people left the party after MG Ramachandran’s death and after J Jayalalithaa lost the 1996 elections. “But the true cadre will remain and that is the AIADMK’s strength,” he said. “We are starting preparations for local body elections. The leaders will have a meeting with each district secretary in the coming days.”
Venkatachalam was the minister for environment and revenue in late Jayalalithaa’s cabinet from 2011-2016.
He wasn’t given a ticket in this year’s assembly election, so he contested unsuccessfully as an Independent that led to his expulsion.
He said that more than 900 cadre from other parties and organisations have joined him. Venkatachalam hails from Erode, a part of Tamil Nadu’s western region, which has been the AIADMK’s citadel.
In this year’s elections, the DMK that swept all other regions couldn’t win over the western region, where the AIADMK-led alliance with the BJP won 33 of the total 50 seats.
“I will change Erode into an unshakable fort of the DMK,” Venkatachalam said in DMK leader MK Stalin’s presence. He said he would bring in 25,000 functionaries from the district if Stalin approves.
On Thursday, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan’ lieutenant R Mahendran, who quit the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), joined the DMK. Mahendran has been the MNM’s best performing candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Coimbatore constituency.
While addressing the new inductees on Thursday, Stalin said that if Mahendran had joined earlier, they could have performed well in Coimbatore, which is part of the western belt otherwise known as the Kongu region.
“Though we got enough seats to form our government, we did not win the expected numbers in Coimbatore and Kongu region,” Stalin said.
