By IANS
Chennai : Amid signs of strains in its ties with Tamil Nadu’s main ruling party DMK, the PMK held a meeting at Tindivanam, its leader S. Ramadoss’s bastion, Thursday evening.
The meeting comes after senior DMK leader Arcot N. Veerasamy said Wednesday night that “DMK did not need allies like the PMK and the Left” and had the ability to go into the next elections “only with the Congress” for company.
The PMK’s moves are being closely watched here as the party has, in the last one decade, sided both with the DMK and the main opposition AIADMK and pulled out of governments several times.
The executive committee of the party, in the meeting this evening, was also expected to discuss the possibility of withdrawing support to the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) government here.
The PMK gives outside support to the minority DMK government.
PMK president G.K. Mani, however, said that the meet was only to “discuss strategies for the growth of the party in the state”.
Veerasamy is seen by political observers to be speaking on behalf of DMK president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
In his Wednesday night speech, Veerasamy held PMK leader Ramadoss and Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Pandian, responsible for making statements that “caused pain to an octogenarian leader”.
“DMK should go it alone in the next elections, and keep only the Congress as an ally,” he said.
Veerasamy’s latest salvo did not go down well with the allies in the DPA.
Ramadoss has been “very frustrated at the outbursts by DMK leaders like Veerasamy, Durai Murugan and K. Ponmudi”, a PMK source said.
The PMK has been blowing hot and cold ever since the DMK came to power in May 2006.
It has been vocal in its opposition to DMK’s policy decisions on special economic zones (SEZs), satellite townships, airport expansions, liquor sales policy, a titanuim dioxide project of the Tata group and sand quarrying from rivers of the southern districts.