Coimbatore (north) AIADMK MLA PR Arunkumar is the latest to join the O Panneerselvam’s camp, although it might be too little too late. On Sunday, Arunkumar met former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his supporters. He was one of the MLA’s who were kept in the Golden Bay Resort but had managed to escape a day before the confidence vote in the assembly, and had abstained from the vote.
On February 18, MLA Arun Kumar dropped out of the Sasikala camp, and announced that he will refrain from voting.
He was welcomed by Panneerselvam and his supporters at his residence. He said that he joined Panneerselvam to liberate the party from the Sasikala family. He said that he has extended his support to fight against the domination of the family in the party and the government, reported The New Indian Express.
He is the 12th MLA to leave the AIADMK party against general secretary VK Sasikala’s leadership. The other MLAs are K Manickam, S Semmalali, ‘Ma Foi’ K Pandiarajan, S Saravanan, N Manoranjitham, S Shanmuganathan, O K Chinnaraj, A Manoharan and VK Arukutty.
Meanwhile, sources told TNIE that the Election Commission of India had asked OPS faction to respond to the submission made by Sasikala on the complaint challenging her appointment as AIADMK general secretary.
OPS camp had also recently approached the Supreme Court over the validity of the trust vote which elected Edappadi Palanisamy as the CM of Tamil Nadu.