Chennai: TTV Dhinakaran was on Friday elected general secretary of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) replacing V K Sasikala, who will be chosen the party's president when she is released from the Bengaluru prison after her four-year term for corruption.
Deputy general secretary TTV's elevation was made at a meeting of the AMMK’s senior functionaries at its headquarters in K K Nagar, where it was also decided to register the party with the Election Commission to ensure it got reserved symbol in the next election.
The Supreme Court, while hearing a petition from the AMMK seeking 'pressure cooker' as its reserved symbol, had chastised the leadership for not registering the AMMK as a political party with the Election Commission. TTV had not registered the party with EC because that would mean giving up the fight for two-leaves and the AIADMK leadership.
"The fight for two-leaves and the AIADMK will be carried forward by Chinnamma (Sasikala) after her release. She continues to be the AIADMK's general secretary", said AMMK leader Thanga Tamilselvan.
PTI quoted another AMMK senior R Saraswati saying that registering the party with the EC would not weaken TTV and Sasikala in the legal fight claiming themselves as 'true heir' of AIADMK. "EC has given the symbol to them (faction led by TN Chief Minister K Palaniswami) and we went to court. Though the judgment is not in our favour, our leader 'chinnamma' (Sasikala) has all the right to file a review petition," she said.
Responding to the developments, AIADMK senior and state fisheries minister D Jayakumar said as per the EC rules, any party can be registered and can receive recognition only if it secures 6% votes. "AMMK would only secure one or two per cent votes and it would continue to remain just as a group," he said.
Dhinakaran had floated AMMK after he and Sasikala were expelled from the AIADMK. On February 28, the Delhi high court had dismissed their plea challenging the EC order granting the 'AIADMK' name and the 'two leaves' symbol to the faction led by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, saying that the membership figures proved this faction "enjoyed a clear majority". The symbol issue has been lingering since April 2017 and the verdict came as a shot in the arm for the ruling AIADMK ahead of the Lok Sabha polls on April 18.
Dhinakaran and Sasikala challenged the EC order in the Supreme Court following which it agreed to hear it on the limited aspect of allowing use of 'pressure cooker' as a common symbol. The apex court, on March 26, dashed the hopes of the Dhinakaran-led faction for getting the 'pressure cooker' symbol exclusively for Lok Sabha and assembly by-elections, but asked the Election Commission to allot a common free symbol to it.
The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Dhinakaran, as how it can allot common symbol of 'pressure cooker' to the group, which is not recognised or registered by the election commission. The bench said the fact of the matter is that the two-leaves symbol issue is now over and the Dhinakaran-led group has not applied to the election commission for registration as a political party.
