Tamil Nadu ruling party under fire

(June 03, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) PMK’s regular open outburst against the ruling DMK has left several leaders of the party disgruntled.

It reportedly echoed at the DMK’s general council meeting in Chennai on Monday with several leaders urging their party chief M Karunanidhi to snap ties with the PMK.

The relationship with the PMK, one of the main allies of the ruling DMK, has hit a low in the recent past. The open criticism by PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss against the DMK government left a bad taste among the senior leaders of the party.

Speaking at the general council meeting on Monday, Kulithalai Sivaraman, a senior DMK functionary reportedly said, ‘In spite of enjoying several benefits from the DMK-led government, the PMK has been criticising our government. They enjoy some support only in northern districts of Tamilnadu. Yet they have been challenging a big party like DMK on almost all issues.’

They are striving hard to defame the DMK. It’s time that they should be shown the exit door from the alliance, he added.

Echoing the sentiments of Sivaraman, another DMK leader Ponneri Sundaram is said to have accused the PMK of acting against the DMK in various parts of the State.

Karunanidhi, in his concluding remarks at the meeting, had reportedly assured his partymen that an appropriate decision would be taken.

Urging his cadres not to ponder over their (PMK’s) attitude towards DMK, he reportedly said, ‘they have no one else to fall back on’.

A wedding that can lead to new marriage

With the PMK and the DMK seeming more like rivals than as allies, speculation has been rife that the PMK may soon choose play ball with the AIADMK.

As if to add credence to this line of thinking comes the piece of news that the PMK president G K Mani’s son is all set to marry Thiruvallur district AIADMK functionary Valasai Chandrasekhar’s daughter.

While the marriage has nothing political about it, the thing that the occasion may provide the seed for a future tie-up between the AIADMK and the PMK. For, if reports are to believed then AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa and PMK’s head honcho Dr S Ramadoss will attend the wedding slated for next month.

If the two leaders indeed come face-to-face then there is a possibility for some intriguing developments.
- Sri Lanka Guardian