TTV Dhinakaran offensive gets tougher, uglier

Chennai: Abuse found a new low as the TTV Dhinakaran camp stepped up its offensive against the EPS Government on Monday slamming the Chief Minister for captaining the meeting of AIADMK legislators and headquarters office-bearers where resolutions were passed for ejecting Sasikala and TTV from the party.

Heading the vitriolic brigade was Nanjil Sampath, a prominent TTV spokesperson, who went berserk before the TV cameras calling the CM a "420" (fraud) and terming him "utterly incompetent". How could the government dare contemplate taking over Jaya TV and the newspaper Namadhu MGR when in truth both are privately owned? "Does the government have the power?" fumed Sampath.

What goes above is a heavily bowdlerized version of Sampath, who had started with the DMK decades ago, went with Vaiko into his MDMK in 1993, joined the AIADMK in 2012, quit in protest against Sasikala's crowning as interim general secretary on January 3, 2017 - 'If Sasikala alone is qualified to become the leader, I do not have the qualification to accept her as my leader' - only to rejoin her four days later and finding "the heights of democratic spirit in her".

But then, Sampath missed the point that the decision to take over Jaya TV and Namadhu MGR was from the AIADMK party and not from the EPS government.

Andipatti legislator Thanga Tamizhselvan, who is heading the TTV campers at the Puducherry resort, was more composed even while being incisive in his attack on the CM. Amid his beach-walk, he told journalists that the meeting at the AIADMK headquarters had no authority to pass resolutions on convening the general council and expelling the general secretary (Sasikala) and deputy general secretary (TTV). "The general secretary alone has the authority to convene the general council. In case there is a demand for it, it must come as a request signed by at least one-fourth of the general council members", he said.
Questioning why the TTV group of MLAs was not invited for the headquarters meeting, Tamizhselvan said, "That meeting is invalid. Had we been invited, we would have prevented these resolutions from being passed. They are taking wrong decisions misusing position in government. People and the party cadres will give them a fitting reply". Insisting that the party "is with us", he said, "AIADMK is with us. We will run the party, the government. We want the CM to be changed".

Another TTV lieutenant, Perambur MLA Vetrivel, waved a bunch of papers before TV cameras which he said were 'evidence' of land deals involving commercial taxes minister K.C. Veeramani.

The intense attacks from the TTV loyalists appear to be going almost unchallenged by the EPS-OPS camp, despite their apparently libelous content.

"If there is some strategy to neutralise their offensive, we are not aware of that. We can only see that we are taking a lot of beating and there is no fitting response from our top leadership. The public may get the wrong signal that we are losing ground", said a senior member of the ruling camp, requesting anonymity.

"TTV and others with him have repeatedly used the term 'sleeper cells'. This term refers to terrorist assassins and saboteurs lying low till the leader's signal to strike. The police should take note of such statements and the clear defamation in Nanjil Sampath's lambasting the CM today", said another senior AIADMK member.