Chennai: Senior AIADMK leaders C Vijayabaskar and M R Vijayabhaskar, along with their former cabinet colleagues M S M Anandhan and S Valarmathi, joined TVK on Thursday in a major blow to AIADMK.State water resources minister N Anand, PWD minister Aadhav Arjuna and revenue minister K A Sengottaiyan inducted the AIADMK functionaries into TVK in an event at a resort in Mahabalipuram.“This is only the trailer. The main picture will unfold in Pudukkottai where many more will join TVK,’’ said C Vijayabaskar, who had brought a large number of his supporters to join the party. He blamed AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami for his exit from AIADMK. “My colleague M R Vijayabhaskar and I urged Palaniswami to ally with TVK before the election. After the election too, we requested him to join hands with TVK. But he refused to listen to us. Instead, there was an attempt to ally with DMK. Hence we have resigned our MLA posts and joined TVK,’’ Vijayabaskar told reporters.M R Vijayabhaskar compared Vijay to the late chief minister M G Ramachandran. “MGR was the first person to become a chief minister in the first assembly election he faced after starting a party. Now, our CM has accomplished a similar task,” he said.Anand promised that TVK would “take good care” of the former AIADMK ministers. “You need not have any worries after coming here. We will take good care of you,’’ he said.Sengottaiyan hit out at Palaniswami for calling the defecting AIADMK leaders “betrayers”, and alleged that it was he who had committed “treachery by attempting to strike a deal with DMK”.“How can he (Palaniswami) join hands with those (DMK) who kept Amma (the late CM J Jayalalithaa) in prison for 21 days,” asked Sengottaiyan. “He (Palaniswami) is trying to run the party with elders but here there are scores of youngsters. When MGR and Amma were there, AIADMK was a party but now it has been turned into a company,” he said.This is the second tranche of AIADMK leaders joining TVK. In the first batch, four former AIADMK MLAs made the move, taking the total number of former AIADMK MLAs who resigned their legislative post to join TVK to six.Health minister K G Arunraj called AIADMK a “shell company”, saying, “A shell company is one which operates in a 100-sqft room. Now, AIADMK has become a shell company with Palaniswami being the sole functionary.”
