Post raids, 24 MLAs meet Dinakaran

In a first meeting after the mega-Income Tax raids on the family members of the sidelined AIADMK leaders VK Sasikala and Dinakaran, 18 MLAs, who were disqualified by the Speaker and the three AIADMK allies, Karunas (Mukkulathor Pulipadai), Thaniyarasu (KonguIlaignar Peravai) and Thamimun Ansari (Manithaneya Jananayaga Katchi) met Dinakaran and expressed their support. 

The visit of the 24 MLAs to Dinakaran’s house came on the same day when the Madras High Court had commenced hearing on a batch of seven petitions, including the one seeking to quash Speaker P Dhanapal’s order disqualifying 18 MLAs supporting him. Dinakaran was closeted with his supporters, who visited him from the morning and the visitors included party functionaries from various parts of the state.

This is the first meeting of Dinakaran with his followers after the mega I-T raids that hit his family and continued for five days throughout the state. There were speculations that some of the MLAs backing him might reconsider their support and cross over to Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s camp after the raids. 

It is said that in the meeting, the supporters of Dinakaran discussed the fall out of the I-T raids and the future strategy to be followed by them in their fight against the ruling Palaniswami faction. They had also discussed the ongoing cases in the Madras High Court, besides the time frame within which the hearing could be completed and the time of the judgment. One of the functionaries said the general opinion among the MLAs and functionaries was that the support for Dinakaran had gone up among the cadre and people after the I-T raids. The functionaries were also elated over the support they got from nearly all the Opposition parties including the Congress, the MDMK, the Left parties and the VCK. 

The raids have put them on a firm anti-BJP platform, which could be helpful to build an alliance with some of those parties, which did not want to join the DMK front, he added.