Two senior leaders of the DMK and PMK, Parithi Ellamvazhuthi who was hailed as the ‘abhimanyu’ of the DMK by its chief M Karunanidhi, and E Ponnusamy, a long-time friend of PMK founder S Ramadoss, both hailing from the Dalit community, joined the AIADMK on Friday in the presence of party supremo and CM J Jayalalithaa. They got the membership cards from the CM.
Ellamvazhuthi (55) resigned as the deputy general secretary of the DMK on October 8, 2011, and later levelled charges against Karunanidhi’s son M K Stalin. Since then, for nearly two years, he has kept away from politics. Ponnusamy resigned from the PMK on January 12 as he could not agree with the party chief’s stand on social issues such a SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and inter-caste marriages. The former Union Minister said he was quitting politics.
Asked what forced him to join the AIADMK, a party which he had opposed tooth and nail in the past, Ellamvazhuthi said “Amma has, out of her magnanimity, forgiven whatever I said and did against her and admitted me in the party. I thank her for the gesture and hereafter, my political journey will be in the direction shown by her,” he said.
On the reasons for quitting the DMK, Ellamvazhuthi said he didn’t want to be in a party where he was not treated with respect and his hard work was not recognised. Though he was given the deputy general secretary post, he was not given due respect due for it, he claimed. “The pain was simmering within me for a long time and I found the remedy in AIADMK,” he added.