“After winning, he started to think he was a mass leader like MGR and Jayalalithaa."ĭhinakaran's attitude apparently put supporters off from the very beginning. V Pugazhenthi, former organizing secretary of AMMK, who left the party last week and plans to join the AIADMK, said that the RK Nagar victory went to Dhinakaran's head. His decline is the result of egocentric politics because of which even his family members stay away from him,” Srinivasan said, pointing out that this was the reason for Divakaran to launch his own party.īlaming Dhinakaran for the split in Sasikala's family, Srinivasan charged that he had humiliated various influential persons who were close to Sasikala and her relatives. They gathered behind him as he presented himself as a strong opponent of the BJP and AIADMK. “He managed to mobilise a large number of cadres after he won the RK Nagar bypoll. Hence, there are neither influential functionaries nor loyal cadres left,” he said. Now, he is neither loyal to Jayalalithaa nor Sasikala. "His adamant and atrocious behaviour with party functionaries drove them away. The former AMMK functionary said he had failed to fulfil Sasikala's instructions and wishes. The ruling AIADMK’s Namadhu Amma daily has gleefully published at least five news stories about AMMK functionaries - from the village to State-level - joining the AIADMK. But, his party candidate could get only 10,551 votes in the same RK Nagar assembly segment in the recently concluded LS polls," he said.īurned by the performance, Dhinakaran who had once said the party would face any election with any symbol, shied from contesting bypolls to Vikravandi and Nanguneri assembly constituencies on grounds that the party could not get a symbol as it was not a registered party.īetween May 23, when the parliamentary poll results came out, and October 24, when the Vikravandi and Nanguneri results were announced, nearly 70 per cent of his state and district functionaries switched their loyalties to the ruling AIADMK or the DMK. "He secured 89,013 votes in the RK Nagar bypoll. Suddenly it appeared as if the new giant-killer of Tamil Nadu politics was simply a mirage.Īllur K Srinivasan, the spokesperson of Anna Dravidar Kazhagam, launched by Dhinakaran's uncle V Divakaran, pointed out the loss of influence by comparing AMMK's performance in RK Nagar. While the party polled a respectable 10+ per cent of votes in several of the southern constituencies, it failed to win even a single seat. As a rebel MLA, commanding the loyalties of at least 18 MLAs who faced disqualification from the House for him, Dhinakaran gained much popularity.Īs one former AMMK functionary, now away from active politics, put it: "Lakhs of AIADMK cadres followed him because our leader Sasikala identified him as her political successor." Further, as a member of the powerful Thevar community that has traditionally backed the AIADMK, the AMMK was expected to affect the ruling party's electoral performance in the southern parts of the State where a large proportion of the community resides.Ĭandidates of the AMMK, which did not have its own electoral symbol, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and bypolls to 21 Assembly constituencies as Independents. Sasikala installed him as party deputy general secretary in 2017 before going to prison but when the O Panneerselvam and Palaniswami factions united, she and Dhinakaran were expelled. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Periyakulam in 1999, and was sent to the Rajya Sabha in 2004. The 55-year-old Dhinakaran, nephew of Jaya's aide and confidante VK Sasikala, was not an outsider to politics.
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