CHENNAI: DMK’s mouthpiece Murasoli hit out at CPM state secretary P Shanmugam, accusing him of supporting the TVK government and alleging that the Left’s real aim was to see the Dravidian parties defeated in the state.
In the first part of a series titled “P Shanmugam’s real face,” written by P Thirumavelan, the DMK organ refers to a recent article by the CPM leader on the new political situation and “the duty of Marxist Communists” in the party’s political mouthpiece Theekathir.
The Murasoli editorial questions the timing and intent of Shanmugam’s writing, asking whether the Left leader “knew all of this beforehand” when he sat down to pen it. According to Murasoli, the CPM’s article does not read like an honest Marxist reading of the moment, but like a man content to see “a full stop placed on Dravidian rule.”
The editorial said that instead of regretting the fall of a DMK-led government, of which the Left was a part, Shanmugam welcomed the new arrangement and it was a proof that CPM “only wanted the Dravidian parties weakened” in Tamil Nadu. It alleges the Left was willing to go along with the TVK-AIADMK camp so long as the Dravidian majors were cut to size.
The editorial pointed to the MLA numbers supporting TVK in the confidence motion, including the 144 MLAs who backed Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay to prove his majority, to argue that Shanmugam was defending the Left’s shift towards the ruling side rather than offering a real critique of it.
The attack comes as DMK sharpens its criticism of former allies after the Assembly results, which saw the Congress first backing TVK, followed by left parties, VCK and IUML.
CPM had been a long time partner in the DMK-led alliance.