CHENNAI: Assembly Speaker M Appavu on Tuesday claimed that 40 AIADMK MLAs were ready to shift loyalty to DMK in April 2017, but the then working president and leader of opposition MK Stalin had refused to utilise that opportunity to form the government and took a principled stand.
Speaking at a function here on Monday, Appavu said after the death of Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK split into many factions and 18 MLAs complained about the EPS government to the governor. “On the day TTV Dhinakaran went to Tihar jail, a friend of mine called me and said 40 AIADMK MLAs are ready to shift their loyalty since they don’t know where to go.
Immediately I thought the DMK was out of power for 10 years and using this (if DMK formed the government) we could give local body posts to two crore persons if we conduct local body elections, and one lakh people could be given posts in cooperative departments. So, the DMK should utilise this opportunity and I conveyed this to Stalin.
Two days later, Stalin said only with popular mandate, the DMK will come to power and not otherwise. He took such a principled stand,” Appavu said. However, stoutly denying this, AIADMK organising secretary D Jayakumar, at party headquarters here, said, “There is not even an iota of truth in the statement made by Appavu. He just speaks like this in the expectation of becoming a minister. I request Stalin to make Appavu a minister.”