TTV Dhinakaran: From 'future' of AIADMK to a lonely man now

The 57-year-old has gone into a shell after the election defeat and his studied silence is leading to trusted lieutenants deserting him

At the height of his rebellion against the current AIADMK leadership, T T V Dhinakaran was touted as the “future” of the party for his charisma helped him succeed late J Jayalalithaa as the MLA of R K Nagar Assembly constituency here.

After successive election defeats – his Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) came as a cropper in the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly polls – Dhinakaran is now a lonely man.

The 57-year-old has gone into a shell after the election defeat – he lost from Kovilpatti in Southern Tamil Nadu – and his studied silence is leading to trusted lieutenants deserting him and joining arch-rival DMK.

Three former MLAs – Jayanthi Padmanabhan, Mariappan Kennedy, and P Palaniappan – who are among the 18 persons disqualified as legislators in 2017 for siding with Dhinakaran have resigned from AMMK and joined DMK in the past few weeks.

Already, two leaders from the lot, V Senthil Balaji, and Thanga Tamilselvan had joined the DMK with the former now the Electricity Minister of Tamil Nadu. With his aunt, Sasikala also not welcome in the AIADMK, albeit, for now, Dhinakaran is now confined to his home just releasing statements on important issues.

Dhinakaran, who was banished from AIADMK by late J Jayalalithaa in 2010, was rehabilitated by his aunt V K Sasikala in 2017 before she left for Bengaluru to serve a four-year jail term in a disproportionate assets (DA) case.

Sasikala appointed Dhinakaran as deputy general secretary of AIADMK and his problems began. Within months, the entire AIADMK cabinet, including Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, turned against him, allegedly at the behest of the BJP, forcing him to keep away from the party affairs.

Dhinakaran rebelled against the AIADMK when Palaniswami joined hands with O Panneerselvam, and that is when the 18 MLAs sided with him and lost their posts subsequently. After his victory in the R K Nagar Assembly bye-election, Dhinakaran launched his AMMK banking on his “charisma”, and according to his former aides, this move led to his downfall.

“He (TTV) should not have come out of the AIADMK. He should have challenged the leadership by being part of the party though he was expelled. The moment he launched a new party, it gave considerable mileage to the AIADMK. We did tell him not to launch a party, but our advice was not heeded to,” a former aide of Dhinakaran told DH.

With the AMMK’s performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls not being on expected lines – the party scored 5.25 per cent of votes – Dhinakaran went into a shell. His reading that his aunt Sasikala’s release from jail would create ripples in AIADMK and there would be an exodus to his party before the election also went wrong.

Also read — Sasikala cannot re-join the party under any circumstances: AIADMK

“TTV was isolated politically this election. No party was willing to align with him. The BJP’s efforts to bring AMMK into the AIADMK alliance also failed with EPS stonewalling the move. Though everyone expected his party to lose, his defeat from Kovilpatti was shocking. It is the defeat that has now led to the exodus,” a former MLA who was with him told DH.

Prof Ramu Manivannan, Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras, told DH that Dhinakaran was never bound to be a man possessing mass appeal who is at best a “good political manager.”

“Unless Sasikala (TTV’s aunt) finds the treasure (leadership of AIADMK), Dhinakaran is destined to play the peripheral role. He has no other choice or option. He never had the connection with the people in the R K Nagar constituency from where he won. He never visited the constituency,” Prof Manivannan said.