Sasikala’s posters removed from office

THE PANNEERSELVAM CAMP HAS STUCK TO ITS DEMANDS OF

THE EXPULSION OF SASIKALA, DINAKARAN FROM THE AIADMK AS PRECONDITION FOR TALKS

Party workers pulled down posters and cutouts of AIADMK (Amma) general secretary VK Sasikala at its headquarters in Chennai on Wednesday, hours after her nephew and the faction’s deputy general secretary TTV Dinakaran was arrested.

Dinakaran was arrested by Delhi police on Tuesday night over allegations that he paid bribe to a middleman to secure the disputed two-leaves party symbol for his faction.

He was arrested with his aide Mallikarjun after three days of questioning at the Chanakyapuri crime branch office.

The dispute over the symbol erupted after the AIADMK split into the Sasikala-led AIADMK (Amma) and former chief minister O Panneerselvam’s AIADMK (Puratatchi Thalaivi Amma) following the death of party supremo and then Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

The rival camp is now led by chief minister Edapaddi Palaniswami, a Sasikala loyalist.

The Panneerselvam camp has stuck to its demands of the expulsion of Sasikala, Dinakaran and other family members from the AIADMK and a CBI probe into the death of Jayalalithaa as preconditions for talks.

CV Shanmugam, a state minister, however, said: “We did not remove the posters because someone has asked us. We did it on our own after the district secretaries meeting on Tuesday.”

“Now that Dinakaran has been arrested and his aunt Sasikala is serving a sentence, slowly the EPS camp is realising the altered ground situation and might be more eager to commence merger talks,” a senior leader from the Panneerselvam camp told HT on Wednesday.