Expelled DMK leader MK Alagiri has lashed out at his younger brother and party Working President MK Stalin for the party’s drubbing in the RK Nagar by-poll, saying it cannot win any election under his leadership.
“Not just RK Nagar by-poll, the DMK will not henceforth win in any election. There is no chance for that till this Working President (Stalin) is there (at the helm of affairs),” he said in an interview to a Tamil magazine.
The Madurai-based former DMK strongman, son of party President M Karunanidhi, wielded tremendous clout in South Tamil Nadu during the 2006-11 party rule.
“Such a situation (DMK finishing third in the by-poll) would not have emerged if Leader (Karunanidhi) was active,” Alagiri said.
Alagiri and Stalin are involved in a long-running feud in the DMK first family with both contending to be their father’s political heir.
A former Union Minister, Alagiri had once famously asked if the DMK was a mutt where a senior pontiff could appoint his successor, indicating that he was always in the reckoning.
However, Alagiri was expelled from the DMK in 2014 for alleged anti-party activities, and has largely remained in low profile since then.
The ruling AIADMK latched onto Alagiri’s comments to take potshots at Stalin.
“Alagiri has said the DMK cannot win (under Stalin’s leadership)... His (Stalin’s) own brother has said so,” senior AIADMK leader and Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar said, without elaborating.
The DMK lost the December 21 RK Nagar bypoll, where its candidate N Maruthu Ganesh polled around 24,000 votes, which was way below the 57,673 votes secured by the party in the 2016 Assembly elections. Th party lost its deposit in the by-poll.
Rival AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, contesting as an independent, won the by-poll getting 89,013 votes.
He defeated his nearest rival, AIADMK’s E Madhusudhanan, who got 48,306 votes.
‘Defeat for Election Commission’
Alleging that the victory was due to “money power”, Stalin has claimed that it was “a Himalayan defeat for the Election Commission rather than the DMK candidate.”
The DMK has appointed a three-member committee to look into the by-election outcome, and submit a report before December 31.