KDMK changes candidate for Namakkal Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Buckling under pressure, Kongunadu Makkal Desia Katchi (KDMK), an ally of the ruling DMK, on Friday named V S Madeswaran as its candidate from Namakkal Lok Sabha seat, replacing S Suriyamurthy whose past speeches justifying honour killings created an uproar. 

E R Eswaran, general secretary of KDMK -- a party that claims to espouse the cause of entrepreneurial Gounders spread across western Tamil Nadu -- announced the decision to change the candidate on Friday after several alliance partners demanded that Suriyamurthy should be replaced. 

“Madeswaran is the candidate from Namakkal,” Eswaran added. 

Video clips of Suriyamurthy making “hate speeches” against the Dalit community went viral, raising questions on the radio silence of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, on KDMK’s choice.

Since KDMK is contesting in DMK's 'Rising Son' symbol, netizens demanded that the DMK intervene in the issue. 

In one of the videos, Suriyamurthy tells a group of youngsters belonging to the Gounder community that the KDMK has assembled around 1,500 youth, who will monitor whether any youth from Dalit or other communities are trying to lure women from the Gounder community. 

 “If you believe that marrying a Gounder girl will make you rich, we will make sure you are eliminated along with your mother while still in the womb… If anyone from other castes make an attempt to touch Gounder women, we will warn them. If they do not heed to it, we will kill both of them,” Suriyamurthy says in one of the videos.