Reporter's diary: Sulking seniors and their irksome cold war

CHENNAI: The ruling DMK cadres are closely monitoring the political developments and the fractions in Madurai and Dindigul region, thanks to the prevailing friction among the DMK seniors and State ministers from Pandiya Nadu.

There is some minor issue between the ministers in the Madurai region and who is having overall control of the region.

During a recent visit to the State secretariat, the cadres who had arrived to meet the Madurai-based commercial tax and registration department minister P Moorthy, held a discussion.

“Usually there use to be bonhomie between the ministers coming from Madurai and Dindigul but now that’s missing. The cadres are found restricting themselves from frequenting the ministers of other districts,” admitted a DMK worker hinting the friction between Dindigul veteran and cooperatives minister I Periyasamy and other two junior ministers including Moorthy and finance minister Palanivel Thiagarajan.

The Madurai politics which was once completely controlled by former union minister MK Azhagiri is now regionalised between the 3 heavy weights. This, at times, creates multiple power centres leading to the formation of more groups, rued the party worker.

He also wanted this scribe to update him about the sulking seniors and the simmering tensions within the cabinet ministers.

On similar lines, factional friction is mushrooming in north Chennai between MLA I Paranthaman and HR&CE Minister PK Sekarbabu, rued another functionary who was waiting to meet a DMK minister based in north Tamil Nadu.