CM Stalin discusses district secretaries polls with party seniors

CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday discussed the issue of election of DMK district secretaries with senior leaders at party headquarters Anna Arivalayam. Stalin got into a huddle with party seniors amid speculations that DMK deputy general secretary Subbulakshmi Jagadeeshan quit her position in the party. The discussion happened a day after DMK general secretary Duraimurugan notified the election of district secretaries for the 65 party districts.

Chief Minister Stalin is understood to have elicited the seniors’ views on Subbulakshmi’s alleged resignation, which has happened in the backdrop of her husband Jagadeeshan publicly rebuking incumbent state Housing Minister S Muthusamy for his wife’s defeat in Modakurichi Assembly segment in the 2021 Assembly polls. Subbulakshmi, the lone woman deputy general secretary of the party had lost by a meagre 281 votes to BJP’s Saraswati in her own backyard. The defeated deputy general secretary was learnt to have vainly urged the high command to act on the Minister.

Subbulakshmi Jagadeeshan abstains from Mupperum Vizha She had also abstained from last week’s Mupperum Vizha celebrations in Virudhunagar, the most significant event of the DMK in a calendar year, lending credence to the speculations that she had distanced from the party affairs in view of the impending resignation. Grapevine has it that the DMK high command was also in favour of Subbulakshmi demitting office due to the repeated public besmirching of the Minister by her husband Jagadeeshan. DMK sources privy to the development disclosed that it was a matter of time before she loses her party position, unless the high command has a change of heart at the nick of time, which seems improbable now.

As the party continues to keep the issue under the wraps, DMK sources disclosed to DT Next that the party general council could meet in the second half of next month to re-elect Stalin as party president and validate the remaining elections in the DMK organisation. Election of the party district secretaries for which applications would be received from September 22 to 25 are expected to be completed before next month’s general council.