Vijayakanth, the leader of Opposition in the Tamil Nadu legislative Assembly has blamed Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for Kanimozhi’s victory in Thursday’s election to Rajya Sabha.
“Kanimozhi, the DMK nominee in the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha held on Thursday from Tamil Nadu won because of the help extended by the AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa,” said Vijayakanth, the DMDK chief.
“Jayalalithaa indirectly helped Kanimozhi win this election. The AIADMK leader made all her MlAs to cast their votes to the five nominees fielded by her. Though Jayalalithaa had surplus votes, she saw to it that even the surplus votes were cast in favour of the AIADMK front candidates. This was to deny the DMDK a victory,” Vijayakanth said in a statement on Friday.
In Thursday’s election to the Rajya Sabha, all five candidates fielded by Jayalalithaa sailed through smoothly by polling enough votes. Though the DMK candidate Kanimozhi did not had the required number of votes (33) and managed to win only 31 votes, she was declared the winner because the DMDK candidate polled lesser votes.
Had Jayalalithaa transferred her surplus five votes to DMDK, the result would have gone in favour of the DMDK candidate. “Jayalalithaa is jealous of the growth of the DMDK. Jayalalithaa could have easily defeated Kanimozhi given the strength of her party in the Assembly. But the AIADMK leader indirectly helped Kanimozhi to scrape through by ensuring that none from her camp voted in favour of our party,” said Vijayakanth.
The Pioneer had reported that Kanimozhi’s victory in Thursday’s election was an act of charity by Jayalalithaa.