'I continue to be president of PMK': Anbumani Ramadoss moves to take control of party

Chennai: PMK’s Anbumani Ramadoss on Friday moved to take control of the party by openly challenging his father and founder S Ramadoss and reinstating leaders expelled by the latter on charges of indiscipline.

Anbumani, former union health minister, also asserted that he continues to be the President of the PMK after having been duly elected by members of the General Council, disregarding his father relegating him as the working president.

Anbumani made the assertions at a meeting of district functionaries called by his team here on Friday, even as he handed over renewal cards to cadres with his father Ramadoss’ picture displayed prominently on them.

Friday also saw Anbumani appointing new office bearers and Ramadoss removing them from the posts and choosing fresh names, in an open war against the other.

“I continue to be the president of the PMK. I was elected by the General Council…this party is run by the cadres…it is not my property or anyone’s property,” Anbumani said in a veiled attack on his father Ramadoss, who has been stressing that he built the PMK from scratch after the agitation demanding Most Backward Class status for Vanniyars in 1989.

Anbumani’s statement comes a day after Ramadoss publicly admitted that his “biggest mistake” was to have made his son as a Union Minister in the UPA-I government while accusing the latter of “shamelessly lying” about several things.

Ramadoss, who launched the PMK in 1989, also charged Anbumani and his wife Sowmiya of “unilaterally deciding” to ally with the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha by vetoing his decision to go with the AIADMK.

The crisis was triggered in December 2024 after Anbumani objected to appointment of P Mukundan, grandson of Ramadoss.

Since then, both the father and son have been blowing hot and cold against each other but with veiled references. Months later, the father removed the son as the president of the party by relegating him as working president and appointed himself to the post.

Ramadoss has been upset with the PMK tilting towards the BJP for the past few years under Anbumani’s leadership. The party failing to win in its stronghold of Dharmapuri for the second consecutive Lok Sabha polls is cited as one of the factors that led Ramadoss to rethink about the party’s alliance strategy.

He wants the PMK not to water down its core agenda of uplifting the lives of Vanniyars and ally only with Dravidian parties, if needed. PMK, whose influence has been waning even among Vanniyars, still commands a committed vote bank of about 5 per cent and was part of the A B Vajpayee-led government and the UPA-I.

The party which came into being in 1989 primarily to espouse the cause of Vanniyars, had swung like a pendulum between DMK and AIADMK for decades together, and aligned with the BJP after its experiment of going alone failed in 2016.