Chennai: An 88-year-old politician of the Dravidian stock and MDMK’s presidium chairperson, S Duraisamy, has shot off a strongly-worded letter to his party general secretary Vaiko, urging him to merge the party with its parent organization, the DMK, and not to further disappoint those who had been taken for a ride through emotional speeches for the past 30 years.
Duraiswamy, who had written five letters to Vaiko since April, 2022, pointing to various unsavoury developments in the MDMK, is particularly peeved with the induction of Vaiko’s son, Durai Vaiko, into the party. He reminded him that the MDMK broke away from the DMK because the then chief M Karunanidhi promoted his son’s ascension in the party.
He urged Vaiko to bring no more disappointments to the party members who had been with him for a long time enamored by his speech. Duraisamy, who was elected to the DMK’s general council in 1957 itself, had left the parent party to throw his weight behind Vaiko when he launched the MDMK in 1993.
But all has not been well between him and Vaiko of late as the latest letter, dated April 27, points out. He accused Vaiko of speaking against him in two party forums in the past but not discussing in the subsequent meetings the allegations he had made through his earlier letters.
He said the party workers now did not see any future for them in the party, whose situation had worsened in the last two years, leaving its future to the mercy of the DMK.
Duraisamy said that he had been in politics since 1946 when as a 11-year-old boy he worked for veteran trade unionist P Ramamurthy, who contested the election to the Assembly from the workers’ constituency.
Many other top leaders of the MDMK are also said to be disillusioned with the way Vaiko was functioning without taking them into confidence on important issues. They feel that he had made several compromises with the DMK just to get a Rajya Sabha seat for him.
Now, the murmur within the party is that Vaiko would soon elevate his son to the general secretary post and then quietly retire with the help of his close associates. Though the disenchantment remained within the party circles, Duraisamy had brought it to the public sphere by making his letter to Vaiko public.
While most of the senior leaders have quietly moved aside over a long period in the past, Duraisamy raising the issue now by questioning Vaiko’s honesty, political ethics and commitment to his professed ideologies, after being loyal to him for over three decades, is an interesting development.
Whether more members and functionaries of MDMK will rally around Duraisamy and impel him to join the DMK or just remove the presidium chairperson out is to be seen.
Durai Vaiko, on his part, said that organizational elections were being held in the party and that some persons were inciting Duraisamy to speak in the manner he is doing now.
