Stalin deputed envoys to placate Subbulakshmi Jagadeeshan

CHENNAI: The high command of the ruling DMK did its bit to placate and retain Subbulakshmi Jagadeeshan, who announced her resignation from the DMK and ‘retirement’ from politics altogether on Tuesday. DMK sources disclosed that their leadership deputed two ministers to make peace with the disgruntled former deputy general secretary.

If sources in the DMK are to be believed, Chief Minister MK Stalin first engaged a young minister from the south to convince Subbulakshmi to reconsider her resignation, which she had tendered on August 29. The junior minister was understood to have vainly held parleys with her close confidants only to be turned away very shortly.

An unrelenting Stalin, DMK sources revealed, got his general secretary and senior most minister Duraimurugan as recently as a couple of days ago to stop Subbulakshmi’s exit. It was after Duraimurugan’s intervention that she had even denied media reports about her impending egress from Anna Arivalayam. However, a recent appointment in the party in Subbulakshmi’s native Erode proved to be the proverbial last straw. The lone woman deputy general secretary till a few days ago pulled the plug after the high command acceded to State Housing Minister S Muthusamy’s request to appoint secretaries for Kodumudi and Modakurichi unions. The two appointments were kept in abeyance based on the complaint from Subbulakshmi who accused them of contributing to her defeat in last year’s Assembly election in Modakurichi Assembly segment (She lost by 281 votes to BJP’s Saraswati). That Muthusamy managed to get his men appointed for the two unions during Stalin’s visit to the region was the breaking point of the bittersweet relationship between Subbulakshmi and the DMK high command of late.