DMK can’t win election under Stalin, says MK Alagiri

Chennai: Expelled DMK leader M.K. Alagiri has lashed out at his younger brother and party working president M.K. Stalin for the party’s drubbing in the RK Nagar bypoll, saying it cannot win any election under his leadership.

“Not just RK Nagar bypoll. The DMK will not henceforth win in any election. There is no chance for that till this working president (Mr Stalin) is there (at the helm of affairs),” he said in an interview to a Tamil magazine.

The Madurai-based former DMK strongman, son of party president M. Karunanidhi, wielded tremendous clout in south Tamil Nadu during the 2006-11 party rule.

“Such a situation (the DMK finishing third in the RK Nagar bypoll) would not have emerged if Leader (Karunanidhi) was active,” Mr Alagiri said.

Mr Alagiri and Mr Stalin had been involved in a long-running feud in the DMK’s first family with both contending to be their father’s political heir.

A former Union minister, Mr Alagiri had once famously asked if the DMK was a “mutt” where a senior pontiff could appoint his successor, indicating that he was always in the reckoning.

However, Mr Alagiri was expelled from the DMK in 2014 for alleged anti-party activities and has largely remained low profile since then.

The ruling AIADMK latched onto Mr Alagiri’s comments to take potshots at Mr Stalin. “Mr Alagiri has said the DMK cannot win (under Mr Stalin’s leadership)... His (Mr Stalin’s) own brother has said so,” senior AIADMK leader and fisheries minister D. Jayakumar said, without elaborating. The DMK lost the December 21 RK Nagar bypoll, where its candidate N. Maruthu Ganesh polled 24,000-odd votes, which was way below the 57,673 votes secured by the party in the 2016 Assembly elections, and lost deposit.