MADURAI/CHENNAI: Striking a discordant note yet again, DMK chief M. Karunanidhi’s elder son M. K. Alagiri has blamed his younger brother and working president M. K. Stalin for the party’s defeat in RK Nagar bypolls.
“DMK won’t win even a single election as long as Stalin leads the party,” Alagiri told a leading Tamil political weekly and a news channel.
Alagiri, the former Union minister, who was suspended from DMK in 2014, also found fault with the candidature of Marudhu Ganesh, who he alleged was the choice of the ‘working president’s family’ in a barb directed against Stalin’s son-in-law Sabareesan.
“DMK under the leadership of Karunanidhi has never faced such defeats,” he said and blamed Stalin’s ‘over-confidence’ and ‘lackluster attitude’ of party seniors for the defeat.
In Chennai, the DMK dismissed Alagiri’s statement, saying he was
speaking ‘out of jealously’ as he is not able to digest the growth of Stalin in the party and in Tamil Nadu’s political space.
“Alagiri has no right to comment on Stalin. He is not even a member of the DMK. He is making these statements out of jealousy,” Triplicane-Chepauk MLA J. Anbhazhagan said, stoutly defending the party’s strategy and the way campaign was run in RK Nagar.
“Every vote we got from RK Nagar is genuine and we did not bribe anyone to get votes,” he said. Political observers said ‘too much’ should not be read into Alagiri’s statement since he is a ‘spent force’ even in Madurai and no more enjoys the clout that he did a few years ago.
“He is speaking out of frustration and by attacking Stalin, he is again burning the bridges with the DMK and his younger brother,” a senior DMK leader said.
Alagiri, who earned notoriety for introducing ‘cash for votes’ on a large scale during the 2009 by-election to Thirumangalam in Madurai, claimed that cash alone would never influence the voters’ choice of the candidates. “It is the field work of party workers that decides the winner,” he said.
