Flag issue: EPS withdraws case against Dinakaran

CHENNAI: In an interesting turnaround after the AIADMK allying with the BJP for the upcoming Assembly election, the general secretary of the party, Edappadi K Palaniswami, withdrew a civil suit challenging TTV Dinakaran using a flag deceptively similar to his party flag.

On Wednesday, a city civil court in Chennai dismissed the civil suit moved by EPS objecting to the flag being used by TTV as his party flag(Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam), as the plaintiff withdrew the suit.

In 2017, EPS filed a civil suit alleging that the ousted leader, TTV, used a political flag which is deceptively similar to his party's flag.

He claimed that his party had been using the combination of red, black and white colours ever since 1972, inception by former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran and that those colours had become synonymous with the party and its members.

The AIADMK flag was described in rule 4 of the party's Rules and Regulations, which clearly stated that the upper half of it should be black, the lower half red and the bust of former chief minister CN Annadurai superimposed in white on the middle of the flag, said EPS.

The flags of political parties create a unique identity for each party, but TTV, using his party flag with a similar colour combination to the AIADMK flag, with its leader and late CM J Jayalalithaa's image superimposed on the flag, said EPS and sought to restrain TTV from using the AMMK flag.