Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, on Sunday, alleged that KA Sengottaiyan, former MLA representing Gobichetipalyam, left the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) to join Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) on the advice of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Calling it a lateral shift, Udhayanidhi said the move was orchestrated by Amit Shah and should be seen as a shift from one branch to another in the same party.
Following infighting within the AIADMK, senior leader KA Sengottaiyan was expelled from the party and had, on November 27, joined the TVK, headed by actor-politician Vijay. V Sathyabhama, former AIADMK MP from Tiruppur, also shifted allegiance.
“Edappadi Palaniswami went to Delhi, changing multiple cars to evade suspicion, and met Amit Shah. Weeks later, Sengottaiyan also went to Amit Shah, on the pretext that he was going on a pilgrimage. Based on his advice, and with his permission, Sengottaiyan joined the TVK,” alleged Udhayandhi.
Speaking at the state conference on social justice organised in Elumathur in Erode by the Puthiiya Dravida Kazhagam (New Dravidian Party), Udhayanidhi alleged it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi that makes decisions regarding who joins which party. He said the AIADMK leaders were fighting to prove who was a better slave to Amit Shah.
He also attacked the AIADMK general secretary for not being critical of TN Governor RN Ravi’s remarks regarding Dravidam. “When Edappadi Palaniswami was asked about the disparaging remarks made on Dravidam, he said, ‘those are questions you should ask intellectuals. I don’t know anything about Dravidam’,” he said. that
Dravidam, or Dravidianism is a regional political ideology and social movement that centered the ethnicity and culture of the Dravidian people native to South India. Dravidianism is a core idea put forward by Periyar Ramaswami Naicker and a founding principle of both the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the AIADMK.
The TN governor had made a statement that Dravidian and Aryan were geographical divisions and not racial ones and that Dravidam was ‘imaginary’.