Chennai: Ten former legislators, including eight who quit opposition DMDK, joined the ruling AIADMK in the presence of party supremo and Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Thursday.
All of them had resigned on February 21, a day after the DMDK founder Vijayakanth expressed his political ambition of becoming the “king” in Tamil Nadu politics. Their resignations saw the DMDK forfeit its status as the major opposition party in the 234-member Assembly.
The former MLAs expressed their gratitude to Ms Jayalalithaa for admitting them in the party.
“They met party leader at her Poes Garden residence this morning and got primary membership cards from her,” said a source in the party.
About a year after getting elected to the 14thAssembly (in 2011) in alliance with the AIADMK, these members called on Ms Jayalalithaa individually and sought her help for implementing government schemes in their respective constituencies.
They were provided separate seats in the Assembly. Surprisingly, they had remained in the DMDK party all these years and stepped down from their seats as legislators a day after the 14th Assembly session concluded on February 20.
Besides the eight former MLAs of DMDK - R. Sundararajan (Madurai Central constituency), K. Tamil Azhagan (Tittakudi), Michael Rayappan (Radhapuram), Arun Pandian (Peravurani), K. Pandiyarajan (Virudhunagar) T. Sureshkumar (Chengam), R. Santhi (Senthamangalam) and M. Arun Subramanian (Tiruttani), those who also enrolled in AIADMK are PMK’s M. Kalai Arasu (Nilakottai Assembly constituency) and A. Ramasamy (Puthiya Thamizhagam – Anaicuttu constituency).
