DMK, TMC heavyweights cross over to AIADMK

They met Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa at her Poes Garden residence on Tuesday morning and owed their allegiance to her party. For former MLA Karuppusamy Pandian, who had spent a little less than a decade in the DMK where he suffered trust deficit with party chief M Karunanidhi, the return to AIADMK is like a homecoming. However, former Congress Whip C Gnanasekaran from Vellore is opening his account in a party without Congress roots for the first time in his long political career spanning over three decades. 

Strangely, both the DMK and the Congress had in fact anticipated their exit, let alone the defections not surprising the two parties. While the DMK had suspended Karuppasamy Pandian from the party a few months ago after he publicly celebrated Jayalaithaa’s acquittal in the DA case, Vasan had stripped Gnanasekaran of his vice-president post late Monday, perhaps, after catching wind of his ‘planned’ migration. 

An MLA even during MGR’s regime in 1977 and 1980, Karupasamy Pandian, fondly called ‘KaNa’ by his supporters, was frequently involved in wrangles with district secretary Avudaiyappan and remained ‘marginalised’ in Tirunelveli ever since the bifurcation of the party district. So sour was his last couple of years in DMK and now he had described Karunanidhi as the ‘spoiler’ of DMK.  

KaNa had incurred the wrath of the nonagenarian and a few of his children for publicly touting DMK treasurer M K Stalin as saviour of the party. In the case of Gnanasekaran, a close relative of AIADMK MP Thambidurai, he attributed his exit to Vasan’s ‘unwise’ decision of forging alliance with Vijayakant’s party-led People’s Welfare Front (PWF). Accusing Vasan of misinforming party men during the Assembly election, Gnanasekaran claimed that TMC chief overlooked AIADMK for PWF even though he was offered 15 seats by the Dravidian major. 

Sources suggest that a possible Rajya Sabha berth, as was offered to his predecessor S R Balasubramanian, was also a reason for the TMC leader to cross over to the AIADMK.