Alagiri attacks Stalin over DMK’s humiliating defeat

DMK president M Karunanidhi’s son M K Alagiri, a one-time party strongman in southern Tamil Nadu who was expelled, has launched a scathing attack on the leadership of his younger bother M K Stalin who is the DMK’s working president following the party candidate’s humiliating defeat in the Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly by-polls.

DMK candidate Marudu Ganesh was not just pushed to the third place in the byelection that was won with a landslide margin by TTV Dhinakaran, nephew of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s jailed aide VK Sasikala, but also forfeited his deposit along with 56 other candidates. The ruling AIADMK had come second.

“After this defeat, I can say that not just R K Nagar the DMK will never win in any election so long as this working president is there at the helm,” Alagiri told a Tamil bi-weekly in an interview.

The brothers have been at war for many years now and Alagiri had never compromised himself to accepting Stalin’s leadership and has repeatedly said that Karunanidhi is his sole leader in the DMK.

Dissecting the party’s performance, Alagiri told a television channel on Wednesday, “I may have been sent out of the DMK but still Karunanidhi is my leader. I never expected this sort of a defeat in a by-election. They have lost the deposit. Some blamed money factor and others the Election Commission. The party’s principal headquarters secretary Duraimurugan when asked about what happened to the cadres’ votes has remarked that ‘money ate them’. I am unable to bear such remarks.”

Accusing senior leaders of not doing field work and simply travelling in SUVs, he said in contrast Karunanidhi would play a very active role during any by-polls. Listing out a series of by-elections in the past, he said, “Karunanidhi would make phone calls to us 10 times a day to know the situation.”

Alagiri said it was bad that the DMK could not win in RK Nagar despite the AIADMK having split. “There is no point blaming money factor. Dhinakaran is in the 33rd position (in the list of candidate) and was given the cooker symbol. How did he win polling as much votes as Jayalalithaa? Even when Jayalalithaa contested, our candidate polled over 56,000 votes. Once the Communists got 10,000 votes against her in the constituency. What happened to all those votes? The DMK couldn’t win despite having an alliance with the Congress and Left,” he said.