Former minister M A S Subramanian on Thursday, emerged as the new in-charge of the DMK in the Puducherry, putting to rest an intense battle within the party ranks to fill the post vacated by former chief minister R V Janakiraman.
The decision was announced by party chief M Karunanidhi to mediapersons at the Anna Arivalayam following a closeted discussion with office-bearers of the Puducherry unit.
Sources inside the party told Express that a battle to take up the reins had been brewing inside the Puducherry DMK for a while as Janakiraman’s exit was more or less confirmed after his loss in the 2011 Assembly elections to AIADMK’s Om Sakthi Sekar.
While Subramanian is among the senior-most leaders currently in the Puducherry unit, the name that was doing rounds as the frontrunner for the post was that of another former minister S P Sivakumar.
Partymen said that Sivakumar lost a chance to contest the 2011 elections owing to arrangements finalised by the DMK with the Congress party. “Following the delimitation, he wanted to contest the Raj Bhavan constituency. But that could not happen as P Kannan’s confidante in the Congress, K Lakshminarayanan, was allotted the seat in the alliance. The deal was that Sivakumar would become a nominated MLA after the elections. But the debacle of the alliance ruined that as well,” said a DMK leader.
Following this, it was hoped that Sivakumar would be awarded with party in-charge post. However, insiders said issues that cropped up between R Siva, the youth wing leader and former MLA, a staunch loyalist of M K Stalin, and Sivakumar in the recent past had made the issue difficult. “There was a feeling that Siva was hogging the limelight in the absence of Janakiraman, to whom he was considered very close. This turned into an intense power struggle with Sivakumar though they were seen as good friends in the past,” said the source and added that Sivakumar left Anna Arivalayam miffed after Thursday’s meeting.