CHENNAI: VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan on Tuesday criticised AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, questioning whether the party’s members are loyal followers of former Chief Minister and late supremo J Jayalalithaa, who had vowed that the AIADMK would never align with the BJP, or mere footsoldiers of Amit Shah.

We were once in an alliance with the BJP, realised our mistake, and have not repeated it since, said late AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa and vowed that the party would never align with the saffron party, Thiruma recalled. However, the present AIADMK chief has chosen to ignore this, he added. “This raises a serious question whether they are true followers of Jayalalithaa or of Amit Shah,” Thiruma asked while talking to media persons after meeting Chief Minister M K Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, responding to Palaniswami’s justification of AIADMK’s electoral alliance with the BJP.

During a public meeting in Coimbatore, Palaniswami had said that the DMK and its allies had no objection to the BJP when they were in alliance with the party and its Hindutva politics. “Why are they raising concerns now and questioning AIADMK,” he asked.

Joining the issue, Thiruma said that though the DMK and the VCK are part of the INDIA bloc at the national level, in Tamil Nadu, the DMK leads the Secular Progressive Front. In contrast, he pointed out, there is ambiguity in the AIADMK-BJP alliance, which is being projected as part of the NDA, implying that the BJP is leading the alliance. “What, then, is the AIADMK’s position in this alliance?” he asked.

He appreciated CM Stalin for naming a students’ hostel as the ‘Social Justice Hostel’, describing it as part of the Stalin-led Dravidian model government’s sustained efforts to eradicate caste discrimination.