At a time when actor-politician and DMDK president Vijayakant is doing all he can to keep his flock together, a party woman legislator sprang a surprise by joining the rebels’ rank and calling on Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa with a representation to redress the grievances of the people of her constituency.
With the defection of R Santhi — representing the Senthamangalam (ST) constituency — the number of rebel DMDK MLAs has risen to six. If four more join their ranks, the rebel MLAs could well escape the Anti-Defection law and function as a separate group.
Arriving at the secretariat on Wednesday morning, Santhi was granted an immediate audience with the Chief Minister, in keeping with the path chosen by other rebels from the DMDK party. The development comes just months ahead of the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha and has jolted the DMDK leadership. With the DMDK eyeing a seat in the upper house of Parliament, the DMK had been expecting it to lend support for the re-election of party chief’s daughter Kanimozhi.
R Sundararajan from the Madurai Central constituency, K Tamil Azhagan representing Tittakudi, Michael Rayappan from Radhapuram, Arun Pandian representing Peravurani and T Sureshkumar from the Chengam contituency were the other rebel MLAs, who had met Jayalalithaa earlier. For the past few months, these five DMDK members have been functioning as a separate group in the State Assembly, frequently hailing the welfare schemes implemented by the AIADMK government.
Talking to reporters later, Santhi said she met the Chief Minister in person only to resolve issues concerning her constituency and that nothing should be read into it. Stating that she greeted the Chief Minister for implementing various welfare schemes for the past two years and entering the third year in office, the legislator said Jayalalithaa had agreed to fulfil certain requests she put forth for the Senthamangalam constituency.
The DMDK had contested the 2011 Assembly elections as an ally of the AIADMK and emerged as the second largest party, winning 29 seats and got the status of the main opposition party in the State Assembly. However, relations between the two parties strained later.
A few more DMDK MLAs are likely to lean towards the ruling AIADMK in the coming days and that this development may have an impact in the forthcoming biennial elections to the six seats in Rajya Sabha, sources in the know have said.