PMK losing grip in Tiruchy

TIRUCHY: Two electoral debacles in a row and the PMK is losing its foothold in the Rock City. Most of its functionaries here have crossed over to the AIADMK ­— prominent among them being Tuvakkudi town secretary Muneeswaran and youth wing secretary Paul Raj. Others have also joined the ruling party in the presence of Minister for Animal Husbandry N R Sivapathi.Those who crossed over said the PMK, as a party, had no future as it lost badly in the northern and western districts. Since  inception, western districts were the PMK’s strongholds. But in a bid to build the party in delta districts, its leaders demanded to contest from an Assembly seat. They got it in the form of Vedaranyam seat, but lost with a huge vote margin. In fact, the PMK’s political clout in Tiruchy had begun to fade after it lost in all the seven seats that it contested from in the 2009 LS polls. It had walked out of the DMK front just before the polls to join hands with the AIADMK. A few months into the alliance, it quit the AIADMK front. It rejoined the DMK front just before the Assembly polls and won from at least three of the 30 seats. “When a party like the DMK had been thrown out for encouraging family rule, how can a smaller party like the PMK justify the succession of Dr Anbumani Ramadoss?” asked some Ex-functionaries. They said he was a Minister when Tamils were massacred in Sri Lanka.