US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Ezhilmalai quits PMK, to join AIADMK

Pattali Makkal Katchi general secretary and Union Minister of State for Health Dalit Ezhilmalai today resigned from the Union Council of Ministers and the primary membership of the party.

He told reporters that he had sent the resignation letters to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and PMK founder-leader S Ramadoss respectively.

Ezhilmalai said he and his supporters will join the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham led by J Jayalalitha.

He said he was elected from the Chidambaram (reserved) constituency in the 1998 election with the support of the AIADMK, which also made him a minister in the Union ministry.

Dr Ramadoss had not renominated Ezhilmalai for the Chidambaram seat this time saying that his services were required for campaigning and organisational work.

Ezhilmalai said he would not contest the coming election.

Political circles, however, said Jayalalitha might accommodate him in Sriperumbudur (reserved) constituency, although she had already announced her party nominee there.

The dalit leader, who had a warm relationship with Vajpayee, sent him a handwritten resignation letter. He said the prime minister called him twice and asked him to reconsider his decision. But he had requested Vajpayee to accept his resignation.

Ezhilmalai, who was a founder member of the Vanniyar-dominated PMK and was its general secretary since its inception, had a tenuous relationship with Dr Ramadoss after he became a Union minister.

Vanniyar leaders in the party had also resented Ezhilmalai's elevation as Union minister as no community member was given representation in the ministry.

Ezhilmalai broke down initially at the media conference but regained composure quickly and answered the queries of the reporters.

He said he was resigning from the party in protest against the style of functioning of Dr Ramadoss, which he said caused suffocation and suffering to him and displayed the intolerance of the party leadership.

"This was the only case in the whole of India where a Union minister, who was also a party general secretary, was denied a renomination," he added.

Asked whether he thought that the Vajpayee government was against minorities, he said it was for the people to decide.

In his two-page handwritten resignation letter, he said he was quitting the government as he was parting ways with his party.

The letter is full of warmth recalling the courtesy and cooperation extended to him by the prime minister and other colleagues.

He alleged that dalits, Christians and Muslims had no place in the PMK and released a long list of people sent out of the party by Dr Ramadoss.

He said he had contested unsuccessfully thrice from the Chidambaram Lok Sabha constituency, but won only in 1998 because of the support of the AIADMK with which the PMK had aligned.

He said that in the present circumstances, it was necessary for the AIADMK-led front to emerge victorious in the election. He hoped his services would be better utilised by the AIADMK.

He said Vajpayee and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi, as also some governors, spoke to him after he tendered his resignation. "But I had requested Mr Vajpayee to accept it."

Asked about anti-dalit actions of the previous Jayalalitha government in the state, he said various anti-dalit incidents had taken place in the past under various regimes, including the Kilvenmani massacre in the late 1960s.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report