Setback For AIADMK As Former Ministers Defect

Chennai: In a major setback to the AIADMK, a batch of 2500 leaders, including a slew of former Ministers, defected from the party and joined the TVK on Saturday at the party’s Pannaiyur office in the presence of a group of State Ministers led by Minister for Rural Development N Anand.

The former Ministers were M C Sampath, Kadambur C Raju, Udumalapet K Radhakrishnan and N R Sivapathi. Of them the first three had unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls that brought the TVK, with C Joseph Vijay as Chief Minister, to power.

Even before the elections, the TVK has been targeting AIADMK leaders and managed to lure K A Sengottaiyan to its side. He won the election on a TVK ticket and was also made a Minister. On May 29, over 300 AIADMK leaders moved over to the TVK and among them were former Minister Vellamandi Natarajan and former DGP and ex-AIADMK legislator R Nataraj.

Apart from that 25 MLAs of the AIADMK supported the TVK in the vote of confidence, enabling the Vijay government to sail through, and faced the wrath of the leadership that wanted them all to be disqualified under the anti-defection law by the Speaker.

While four of them resigned their MLA posts with the hope of getting nominated again from their constituencies by the TVK and winning the elections. It was a major loss for the AIADMK that won 47 seats in the election.

Now with more party leaders switching over to the TVK, the AIADMK might lose its grip as a political force at the grassroots level, which could turn out to be detrimental in the local body elections.

Already AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami had raised hue and cry over defections from his party, accusing the TVK of indulging in ‘horse trading’ and poaching, which was refuted by the TVK that claimed the leaders were switching side on their own volition.

Senior AIADMK leaders Agri S S Krishnamoorthy and M Dhanapal even petitioned the Governor seeking a CBI probe into what they called a multi-crore transaction.