The disintegration of the ruling AIADMK which is yet to recover from the untimely demise of J Jayalalithaa in 2016, got hastened with one of its rebel leaders Senthil Balaji deciding to go back to the DMK, his former party.
It is expected that Balaji would call on DMK president M K Stalin on Friday morning at the party head quarters in Chennai when the latter would declare his joining the party. Hundreds of loyalists of Balaji had left Karur, hometown for Chennai to be with him when he joins the DMK.
For Balaji, joining the DMK is like coming home, as he had quit the party in 2000 to join the AIADMK. He was a Minister in the AIADMK Government led by Jayalalithaa which came to office in 2011. But he was dropped from the Council of Ministers following some allegations. Though he was re-elected to the assembly in the 2016 election, Balaji chose to cast his lot with Sasikala and Dhinakaran in the tussle for supremacy in the party and was disqualified alonh with 17 other MLAs by the Speaker.
Balaji and his close associates remained tight lipped about their plans though there were reports that he was in contact with A Raja, a close confidante of Kanimozhi, daughter of former Chief Minister late M Karunanidhi. What stood out on Thursday was the absence of the pictures of Jayalalithaa and Sasikala from the shirt pockets of Balaji and his followers. Gone too are the pictures of Jayalalithaa and Sasikala from the cars and SUVs of Balaji and his followers.
“By tomorrow morning all these vehicles will spot the pictures of Stalin and Kanimozhi,” said one of the drivers in the motorcade accompanying Balaji to Chennai. T T V Dhinakaran, founder of the AMMK, the breakway faction of the AIADMK, said at Chennai that he had no regrets in Balaji leaving the party.
The possibilities of any kind of patch up between the two parties-the AIADMK and the AMMK- too subsided by Thursday with the announcement by chief minister Edappadi Palaniswamy that all except Dhinakaran were welcome to the AIADMK. This was in response to Dhinakaran’s statement earlier in the week that all except AIADMK 12 leaders were welcome to come back to him accepting the leadership of V K Sasikala and himself. The 12 leaders which the AMMK boss declared as persona non grata include Palaniswamy, deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, ministers P Thangamani and SP Velumani.