AIADMK snaps ties with DMDK

Vijayakant engaged in verbal duel with the treasury benches

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha on Wednesday declared an end to her party’s alliance with film actor Vijaykant led opposition DMDK (Desiya  Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) in the state.

The announcement came amid a huge uproar in the state  Assembly on Wednesday. As the opposition DMDK leader Vijayakant engaged in a verbal duel with the treasury benches, Jayalalitha declared that her party’s alliance with the DMDK was a closed chapter.

“People of Tamil Nadu (before last Assembly polls) had already decided to vote back the AIADMK to power which reflected in the mandate; we would have made a complete sweep with more seats even without the alliance with DMDK,” Jayalalitha thundered after Vijayakant and his party members were evicted from the House on Speaker Jayakumar’s order.

Jayalalitha asserted that it was DMDK’s “good fortune” to have struck an electoral pact with the AIADMK to contest 41 seats and win 27 of them to emerge as the Opposition party in the state Assembly. She said she wanted to “place on record” that from the beginning she did not one bit prefer an alliance with DMDK in the run-up to the seat-sharing talks. The chief minister disclosed that she eventually agreed to an “alliance” with Vijayakant’s party only in deference to her party-men’s wishes.   “With or without this alliance, the AIADMK would have won hands down,” she claimed adding that that was the unstated pre-poll reality then, as people had made up their minds to throw out the DMK regime for all its wrongdoings.

The AIADMK leader contended that DMDK would not have got the “opposition status” and respectable numbers in the House but for its alliance with the AIADMK. She said the former would have drawn a blank if he had gone it alone in the polls.

Decrying the alleged unseemly behaviour of DMDK MLAs led by its leader, Jayalalitha said she “regretted and felt ashamed” that the AIADMK went to the polls in alliance with the former. “Their (DMDK’s)days of ascent is over, their political graph can only nosedive from now,” she added, signaling the formal snapping of all ties with Vijayakant’s party.

Jayalalitha’s candid response capped unruly scenes in the House after Vijayakant’s wordy duel with the ruling AIADMK members as he came to the aid of his party MLA participating in the debate on the Governor’s address.  

DMDK MLA V C Chandrakumar’s scathing attacks on the government over the recent hefty hikes in administered prices including milk, triggered heated exchanges between Vijayakant and the treasury benches and Jayalalitha, culminating in a high-voltage furore in the House.

At one stage, Vijayakant was heard making provocative remarks,with caustic barbs and finger gesticulations, inviting loud protests from the ruling benches.