Tamil actor Gayathri Raghuram meets EPS, joins AIADMK
CHENNAI: Actor Gayathri Raghuram, who quit the Bharatiya Janata Party last year, joined the AIADMK on Friday by calling on party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami at the latter's residence.
She joined the BJP on December 20, 2014, in the presence of the then-national president of the party Amit Shah when he visited Chennai.
The AIADMK chose to admit Gayathri Raghuram on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Chennai.
"Me joining the AIADMK should have happened long ago. But I joined the party today being an auspicious day. My father dance master Raghuram and my grandfather and film director K Subramanyam, his daughter Padma Subramanyam were associated with the AIADMK for a long time. AIADMK party founder MG Ramachandran and former general secretary of the party J Jayalalithaa were like members of our family. My father had done election work for the AIADMK on many occasions,” she said after meeting Palaniswami.
Gayathri Raghuram said the people of Tamil Nadu are longing for a change of guard in Tamil Nadu particularly after the recent floods and heavy rains.
“We all have realised that the people are missing the AIADMK in power very much,” she added.
Expressing happiness over joining the AIADMK, in a Tweet on X, she hailed the party for various reasons and said the AIADMK had ruled the State for 30 years in its 50 years of existence and has been living the aspirations of the people of Tamil Nadu. She said the party has been giving priority to the welfare of minorities and is instrumental in implementing reservation etc.
In the 2016 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Gayathri Raghuram was one of the star campaigners of the BJP. Gayatri Raghuram sought a BJP ticket for the Mylapore Assembly constituency in that election. On July 3, 2020, Gayathri Raghuram was made the new president of the Arts and Culture wing of the BJP's state unit. Later, she was appointed as the president of the Overseas and Other States Tamil Development wing of the party.
On November 22, 2022, she was placed under suspension for six months, charging that she had been engaging in activities that brought disrepute to the BJP.
Sharply reacting to her suspension, Gayathri Raghuram accused Annamalai of wishing her exit from the party from day one and that she would come back stronger.
Gayathri Raghuram had said State Intellectual Wing vice president Selvakumar trolled her on Twitter and made comments and she used to give it back. Suspending her, for this reason, was not correct, she added.
Gayathri Raghuram had also said she had put in hard work for the party for eight long years. On January 3, 2023, she quit the BJP and blamed Annamalai for her exit. She also alleged that women are not safe in the State unit of the BJP. Since then, Gayathri Raghuram has been criticising Annamalai on social media.