The controversy over the PMK party’s mobilisation of political outfits against Dalits has cost the party its first prominent casualty. PMK Vellore district secretary Samuel Chellapandian on Wednesday announced that he was quitting the party along with other Dalit leaders of the party.
Chellapandian said he was leaving the party because he could not “sit by and watch party founder Ramadoss blame the Dharmapuri violence on the victims”. He also said Ramadoss’s comments on the clothing of Dalit youth were offensive.
“There isn’t much difference between us and the Vanniyars. We have functioned in the party like brothers. We still do not have anything against the Vanniyar community, only against Ramadoss for his mobilisation against Dalit communities,” said Chellapandian.
He added that the anti-Dalit shift in ideology of the party started two or three months ago.