The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) exodus continued with four former ministers and six former MLAs joining the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), citing lack of respect and discipline.
The four former lawmakers – Kadambur Raju, Udumalai Radhakrishnan, M C Sampath, N R Sivapathy – joined the ruling party in the presence of TVK general secretary N Anand and general secretary for election campaign management Aadhav Arjuna at the party’s office in Chennai.
Six former AIADMK MLAs – Sundararaj (Sankagiri), Rajamuthu (Veerapandi), Manraj (Srivilliputhur), Rajavarman (Sathur), Panneerselvam (Kalasapakkam), Govindasamy (Pappiratipatti) – and their supporters have also joined TVK.
Former MP A Ilavarasan also joined the TVK and two former DMK MLAs – P Kamaraj and M S Shanmugam – have also joined the ruling party.
Udumalai Radhakrishnan, who served as a minister in the late AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa’s cabinet, said he took the decision because party leaders had faced several issues under the leadership of the AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami over the last five years.
“We only need respect and we do not need any other posts,” he said, adding that the AIADMK maintained a “strict discipline” only during the late Jayalalithaa’s regime.
Former minister NR Sivapathy, who had served in the AIADMK for more than 40 years, said, “Just when we were thinking about where to go, we ended up joining the TVK today.”
MC Sampath, in his address, said, “For the past nine years (following Jayalalithaa’s demise), our presence in the AIADMK was merely in name only.”
TVK minister KA Sengottaiyan dismissed the charges, saying, “Horse-trading did not take place in the TVK. Even I tendered my resignation as a lawmaker and later joined the party.”
