Duraimurugan in a fix without party funds, help

A few district secretaries, who were taken to task in the past by Duraimurugan were responding in kind to the Treasurer in the crucial Vellore Parliamentary election in which his son Kathir Anand has been fielded by the DMK.

This, despite Duraimurugan personally appealing to them after the recent meeting of district secretaries chaired by party president MK Stalin here recently.

Duraimurugan, sources said, had put a fresh request to the district secretaries even before ‘rushing’ to his native to resume poll works after the concluding day of the Assembly session on Saturday. “He personally told almost all district secretaries he had met that he was relying only them,” said a party insider in the know. However, the district secretaries, at least a few of them, were understood to have confided to their ‘friends’ in the party that they were not very keen on ‘helping’ the old-timer send his son to the Parliament. Probably, payback time for the non-cooperative district secretaries who had to do a lot of explaining to Karunanidhi in the distant past owing to the incumbent Treasurer’s proximity with the deceased Dravidian stalwart.

A couple of district secretaries were also learnt to have discussed the possibility of Kathir Anand’s nomination getting rejected. The murmurs of the sulking district bosses have come as a body blow to Duraimurugan, who was already cold shouldered by Stalin for seeking election fund. Stalin had told him in no uncertain terms again last week that he would have to manage the election expense on his own.

Facing AIADMK’s AC Shanmugam, a candidate with deep pockets, Duraimurugan has already started complaining to his trusted friends in Vellore about the high command not extending necessary financial assistance to him during a crunch period. Denial of funds must have been another shocker to Duraimurugan after Stalin had earlier suggested a non-family member as dummy candidate for Kathir Anand in the August 5 election.