Dhinakaran plays down ouster of Sasikala

Madurai (TN) :  Sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran today sought to play down the unified AIADMK’s decision annulling the appointment of his aunt V K Sasikala as party interim chief, indicating court could have a final say on the matter.

A combative Dhinakaran also dubbed the general council meeting, where the decision was taken, as a ‘public meeting’ and said he had undertaken efforts to “send home this regime” (led by Chief Minister K Palaniswami).
Referring to the Madras High Court’s order that decisions taken at today’s General Council will be subject to the final outcome of an appeal on the matter, he said only then will it be known if the ouster of Sasikala was ‘valid.’

While hearing an appeal by an MLA of Dhinakaran faction against a single judge’s order dismissing his plea for a stay on the general council meeting, the court last night gave the go ahead for the meeting and posted the matter to October 23. “So we need not make big (a big issue) of it,” Dhinakaran, who is involved in a tussle for power with Palaniswami, said about the General council resolution on Sasikala.

He said it was the same decision-making body which last year appointed her to the post of interim general secretary. Training his guns against “Palaniswami and Co”, Dhinakaran alleged the Chief Minister was not taking forward the policies of late Jayalalithaa as being claimed by him. This was evident in the implementation of the National Entrance Cum Eligibility Test (NEET), he charged.

He said members in the government were thinking that they were the real AIADMK because they were in power, but their real strength would be known at the time of elections. “All those with the Palaniswami group will come back to us if the government is not there,” claimed Dhinakaran, who was appointed deputy general secretary in February last by Sasikala just before she left for Bengaluru to serve her term in the disproportionate assets case.

The unified AIADMK had earlier said Dhinakaran had been removed from the post on August 10 itself. “Whoever I meet, whether it is party supporters, youth or general public, want this government to go. I have undertaken efforts to send this regime home,” he said. “Betrayal has aligned with betrayal,” he said in an apparent reference to the August 21 merger of the two factions led by Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam.