Dhinakaran, Stalin pact led to win: AIADMK

chennai — Ruling AIADMK has alleged that there was a “tacit understanding” between rival faction leader T T V Dhinakaran and the opposition DMK to defeat it in the RK Nagar bypoll in which the sidelined party leader emerged victorious.

Asserting that the win, which was achieved by a “conspiracy” of Stalin and Dhinakaran, would not affect the AIADMK, party coordinator O Panneerselvam and co-coordinator K Palaniswami said on Sunday the DMK, their party’s arch rival, faced its “worst defeat” in an election to any Assembly segment in Tamil Nadu so far.

Dhinakaran won the bypoll to the prestigious seat by a whopping margin of over 40,000 votes while DMK candidate N Maruthu Ganesh finished third, garnering 24,651 votes, in the process losing his deposit. AIADMKs’ E Madhusudanan came second.

The bypoll was held to fill the vacancy caused by the death of sitting MLA and then chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

“The result of the RK Nagar bypoll is an outcome of the tacit understanding between DMK working president M K Stalin and Dhinakaran,” Panneerselvam and Palaniswami said in a joint statement Sunday night.

Stalin rejected the charge and alleged it was the state ministers under the charge of Palaniswami and Panneerselvam who aided the Dhinakaran camp in distributing money to voters.

To reporters’ query on the AIADMK’s charge, he asserted that the DMK faced the poll only in “alliance with democracy”.

“Hence, this poll is not a loss for the DMK. It is a huge defeat for the Election Commission,” Stalin claimed. —