Chennai: A day after senior AIADMK leader and former Tamil Nadu minister K.A. Sengottaiyan’s 10-day deadline pitch to party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami to reunite all breakaway leaders, the veteran MLA has been stripped of all party positions.
Sengottaiyan’s removal as AIADMK’s Organising Secretary and Erode (Rural West) District Secretary with immediate effect was announced in a statement Saturday. The decision came hours after Palaniswami held an urgent meeting with the party’s senior leaders, including former minister S.P. Velumani and others, in Dindigul Saturday morning.
Sengottaiyan told media persons in Erode that he was happy with the decision of the party leadership. “However, it is undemocratic. The party leadership should have sought an explanation from me, before taking action. Nevertheless, my fight to reunite all the AIADMK supporters and leaders will continue,” he said.
On Friday, Sengottaiyan had met the press at Gobichettipalayam in Erode district, and urged the party leadership to readmit all the supporters of AIADMK, without names of breakaway leaders V.K. Sasikala, O. Panneerselvam, and T.T.V. Dhinakaran.
Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) leader Dhinakaran—nephew of Sasikala, a close aide of former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa—told media persons that Sengottaiyan’s removal from party posts will not have any impact on him. “It only shows how the party leadership is handling those who voice concern for the unity of the party,” he said.
Sengottaiyan is one of the seniormost leaders of AIADMK, or All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Born in Kullampalayam in Erode district, he began his political journey in the early 1970s as an AIADMK panchayat secretary, and rose to become the party’s Erode district secretary by 1975 under the leadership of former chief minister M.G. Ramachandran.
He was first elected as MLA from Sathyamangalam in 1977, when AIADMK came to power for the first time in Tamil Nadu. Since then, he has been re-elected from the Gobichettipalayam constituency eight times. Today, he is the longest-serving MLA in the state, matched only to his Opposition counterpart, DMK minister Duraimurugan.
He was the transport minister in 1991-1996, when Jayalalithaa was the chief minister. He held the agriculture portfolio in 2011, before being moved to the IT department by Jayalalithaa the same year. In 2012, he was removed from the ministerial position over allegations that he had an extramarital affair, and was sidelined until 2016. Later, he was named the school education minister in December 2016 under then CM Palaniswami.
Within the party, in 2006, he was appointed the AIADMK headquarters secretary and served till 2012. He was also named the Presidium Chairman in 2017 for a brief period when Sasikala was the interim general secretary of the party after Jayalalithaa’s demise.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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