Chennai: Heavy police pickets were posted at Sathyamurthy Bhavan, the headquarters of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC), on Wednesday following an outbreak of senseless violence inside premises on Tuesday when a meeting of party MPs, MLAs and senior leaders was called to discuss the Lok Sabha elections in the presence of AICC in-charge for the State, Dinesh Gundu Rao, and others.
The meeting was abruptly called off and rescheduled for Wednesday evening as TNCC treasurer and MLA, ‘Ruby’ R Manoharan, representing Nanguneri constituency, and his supporters kicked up a ruckus at the meeting demanding the immediate dismissal of three functionaries of the party’s Tirunelveli-East district and appointment of Manoharan's nominees.
One of the charges raised against K P K Jayakumar, Tirunelveli-East president, Muthukrishnan, Nanguneri area secretary, and Franklin Balasingham, Kalakad area president, was that they were not giving due respect to Manoharan. The disrupters said that they would not allow the meeting to be held if their demand for dismissal of the three leaders was not acceded to.
When TNCC president, K S Alagiri, postponed the meeting and was trying to leave the premises, a group of persons, brought to the venue in six buses allegedly by Manoharan, blocked his car, leading to scuffle. A group of Alagiri supporters confronted those who laid a siege of the premises and three supporters of Manohar sustained bleeding injuries in the melee.
They were identified as Joshua, Kalakkad Town Youth Congress President, Daniel and Robert – all from Tirunelveli district. Though the Congress functionaries told the police force that rushed into the premises following the clash that it was an internal party matter, police took precautions and posted pickets there.
When the meeting resumed on Wednesday, party leaders and functionaries demanded action against Manoharan and his three key aides from Tirunelveli district who were injured in the clash. The party’s district presidents also passed an unanimous resolution demanding the expulsion of Mahoharan and submitted it to the State leadership.
Party sources said that Manoharan, who was aspiring to be the next TNCC president as there was a rumour about major changes in the party structure in the offing, was playing a game of one-upmanship by ferrying his henchmen to the venue and also creating trouble.
Ever since he won the Nanguneri MLA seat in 2021, he had also been trying to run down the others in the party, a leader said, referring to an incident in September, 2021, when Manoharan abused and humiliated S Rajesh Kumar, Deputy Leader of the Congress Legislative Party representing Killiyur constituency inside the Assembly Hall in Kalaivanar Arangam, where the House proceedings were held then due to the pandemic.
Rajesh Kumar had then claimed that Manoharan, without any provocation, charged towards him menacingly and shouted at the top of his voice, telling him not to aspire for the Senate member’s post in the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University since it was situated in Tirunelveli district, he said.
Though it was the Congress party that had planned to nominate Rajesh Kumar to the University Senate since he had not been named for any other committee, Manoharan intimidated him in the presence of other MLAs in the Assembly first and against confronted him at the Congress Legislative Party office later in the day when he lost his temper and had to be physically restrained by other members.
