Coimbatore: Crisis-hit Kongu Nadu Munnetra Kazhagam (KNMK) party president ‘Best’ Ramasamy on Sunday said that he would declare his exit from politics at a “suitable time” but not now although he has decided to quit.
Reacting to reports on his exit from the party, KNMK president said, “The proposal is there to retire, but I will declare that at a suitable date and time. I have asked him (general secretary G K Nagaraj) to do the party work for some time. I will not interfere in his work and he can continue working, but I will declare my retirement after a while.”
At a meeting held by a 51-member committee of the party, a resolution has even been passed to conduct a felicitation function for the president while relieving him from his post.
The resolution said that the president’s exit would be officially declared soon, even though the same had been confirmed by him orally and reconfirmed by his nephew at the meeting.
The ongoing confusion within the party may have weakened its political stand even if the party did put a brave fight in the 2009 parliamentary and 2011 assembly elections.
G K Nagaraj said that the president had been saying he would quit for a while now, but nothing happened. Now, with elections around the corner, one could not dillydally, he said.
Ramasamy alleged that the party, now without him as an active president, had once again split into two with a rival group opposing Nagaraj. However, this was squarely denied by the latter. The general council of the party was empowered either to appoint or remove anyone, but he continued to be in his official capacity so far.
KNMK president said he had ‘learnt the hard lesson through his experience’ that a community -based party would not succeed. “I have seen it in my experience. So, I wanted to be relieved from the party,” he said.
