Rebels expel Jayalalitha from AIADMK

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Jayalalitha Jayaram was "expelled" from the party on Tuesday by the rebel general council convened by expelled deputy general secretary S Thirunavukkarasu and his supporters.

The general council unanimously appointed Thirunavukkarasu as party general secretary in her place. The vacation bench of the Madras high court has, however, stayed the decision for a week.

Jayalalitha's expulsion came a couple of hours before the meeting of her faction's general council at a nearby venue at Kodambakkam. She had been expelled by another rebel leader S Muthuswamy last September.

A resolution adopted at the rebel convention said Jayalalitha was being expelled as AIADMK general secretary and from the party's primary membership to save it from being destroyed by her.

The resolution said she had brought disrepute to the party by 'looting' party funds, public money, violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act along with Sasikala Natarajan and acting in an authoritarian manner, throwing to the winds all democratic norms.

After convening the general council on different dates, both groups advanced the holding of the council meeting twice, in an apparent bid to outbeat the other, culminating in the meeting of the general councils simultaneously on Tuesday.

The rebel general council was attended, among others, by seven Rajya Sabha members of the AIADMK who were expelled last fortnight from the party by Jayalalitha.

The rebel general council, chaired by expelled party organising secretary Arjunan, unanimously invalidated all expulsion of party leaders, including Thirunavukkarasu, Muthuswamy and S D Somasundaram.

The rebels want Jayalalitha to hand over all party files, movable and immovable properties of the party to Thirunavukkarasu. This means there will be a tussle for the control of the AIADMK headquarters on Avvai Shanmugam road in Madras.

The AIADMK, founded by the late M G Ramachandran after he was expelled from the DMK in 1972, suffered its first split in May 1987 after MGR's death. Janaki Ramachandran, the late chief minister's widow, headed the official group and Jayalalitha lead the rebels.

The party suffered another split in 1988 when Thirunavukkarasu, C Aranganayagam, V R Nedunchezhian and S Ramachandran revolted against Jayalalitha. In February 1989, the factions led by Janaki Ramachandran and Jayalalitha united.

Thirunavukkarasu, who was expelled from the party in June 1990, floated the Anna Puratchi Thalaivar DMK. He later renamed his party the MGR DMK. He merged his party with the AIADMK shortly before the 1996 general and assembly elections.

After the party's debacle in the elections, the AIADMK split again. Somasundaram, Muthusamy, Kannappan and Aranganayagam, who demanded that Jayalalitha keep away from Sasikala Natarajan, were expelled from the organisation.

The expelled leaders then convened a general council and 'expelled' her from the party. The rebels elected Muthusamy as party general secretary and Somasundaram as chairman of the political advisory committee.

While Jayalalitha was defeated in the last election, Thirunavukkarasu was one of four party candidates elected to the state assembly.

In recent months, he took the stand that the party could only be revived by projecting MGR and this was apparently resented by Jayalalitha and her supporters led by former assembly speaker Sedapatti R Muthiah and former minister Satyamoorthy.

Thirunavukkarasu's meetings in the districts were abruptly cancelled last month on Jayalalitha's instructions. On May 19, he was expelled from the AIADMK for indulging in "anti-party" activities.

On Tuesday, he asked the AIADMK's founders -- R M Veerappan, K Rajaram, G Vishwanathan and S R Radha -- to return to his AIADMK and strengthen it. All these leaders were expelled from the party by Jayalalitha at different times.