The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday mocked regional party Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam for its performance in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK claimed TTV Dhinakaran and his party could never pose a challenge, PTI reported.
In an article in its mouthpiece Namadhu Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, the AIADMK claimed that Dhinakaran’s nominees have not stopped making “boastful claims” despite losing the elections. Dhinakaran’s claim that 1.5 crore workers were on his side was just “tall talks”, it said, adding that the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam can never lead the party that has been built by stalwarts such as founder MG Ramachandran and former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. The AIADMK also claimed that it had decimated the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Tamil Nadu Assembly bye-polls, AMMK’s nominees contested as independent candidates. However, they got only 5% votes cumulatively, losing their deposits. The AIADMK managed to win nine seats in the bye-polls to 22 Assembly constituencies, while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won 12. In the parliamentary polls, the DMK-Congress alliance won 37 out of 38 parliamentary seats for which results were declared on May 23. The AIADMK, which formed an alliance with the BJP, won only one seat while the saffron party failed to win a single seat.
AMMK’s mouthpiece Dr Namadhu MGR claimed the poor performance in the elections was not a “failure, but a stepping stone for success”. It also said the party won 22 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha elections and that the “media and other parties cannot underestimate us”.
It cautioned party workers against switching to the AIADMK, which, it said, was a camp of betrayers. “We will be able to achieve our goal if we do not get bogged down; let us prepare to face the civic polls, let us slog and win,” AMMK added.
On Sunday, Dhinakaran had said that he would file a complaint over non-registration of votes for AMMK. “It is very strange that many of our supporters had voted for our party but their votes have not been registered, there are instances where no votes were cast for our party,” he told ANI. “How is it possible? Election Commission has to clarify. We are collecting the details of booths and we will file a complaint to the Election Commission later.”
Dhinakaran is the nephew of VK Sasikala, a former close aide of Jayalalithaa’s who is serving a prison sentence in Bengaluru now. He was made the AIADMK treasurer after Jayalalithaa had died in December 2016, but was expelled from the party soon after. Dhinakaran went on to win Jayalalithaa’s seat RK Nagar as an Independent.
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