PMK functionaries snub Ramadoss, backs his son Anbumani

The split in the Paatali Makkal Katchi (PMK), an influential party among dominant Vanniyars, was wide open on Friday (May 16) with just 13 out of the 220 district office-bearers of the party turning up for a meeting convened by founder S Ramadoss against his son and working president Anbumani. 

The meeting at Ramadoss’ farmhouse in Thailapuram in Villupuram district reinforces that a majority of the office-bearers of the PMK, which has a committed vote bank of five per cent, owe their allegiance to Anbumani than his father, one of the seniormost politicians in Tamil Nadu. 

Ramadoss, who had been criticising his son Anbumani’s style of politics in public domain for the past few months, invited 110 district secretaries and 110 district presidents for a meeting on Friday, intensifying the power struggle in the party.

The announcement came on May 12, a day after Ramadoss expressed displeasure at “groups being formed” within the party at a conference on May 11, which was attended by lakhs of PMK cadres and people from the Vanniyar community. 

“Only 13 of the 220 invitees attended the meeting. The remaining boycotted the meeting convened by Ramadoss. They are upset with Ramadoss’ public whipping of his son and the party’s future. Ramadoss should have sorted out things by calling Anbumani over to his house. But washing the dirty linen in public has led to such a boycott,” a senior PMK leader told DH.

Ramadoss and Anbumani have been sparring against each other in public since December 2024 when the son took objection to the father’s decision to appoint a family member as the youth wing chief. 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. 

The senior leader said many PMK functionaries feel the need to stand behind Anbumani at this juncture and more than 200 functionaries boycotting a meeting called by Ramadoss is a display of their loyalty towards the former.

“Ramadoss shouldn’t have told the meeting on Sunday that no one other than him was working in the party. This sends a wrong signal and confuses the cadre. He should have exercised restraint in his public interactions,” another PMK leader said. 

However, Ramadoss sought to downplay the boycott saying the invitees who could not attend the meeting called him over phone and convened their inability to attend the meeting. “Lion’s legs have not become weak nor lion’s aggression,” he said.

Ramadoss is said to have 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, sources told DH.

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.