EPS’ cousin and Arasakumar switch sides to oppn DMK

The state vice-president of BJP BT Arasakumar and chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s cousin P Viswanathan from Salem on Thursday met DMK president MK Stalin in the city and formally joined the DMK. Arasakumar, who was embargoed from attending BJP events following his generous praise of Stalin, attributed his decision to lack of self-respect in the saffron party.

Justifying his defection, Arasakumar told media persons at Anna Arivalayam, “My rights and liberties were snatched (in BJP). Orders were imposed for speaking the truth. When I questioned, they called it discipline and ideology. I was abused online for speaking truth. If the state BJP cannot even stop that, there is no need for me to continue in the party. I decided to move to Arivalayam only after that.”

Reasoning that his praise of Stalin was a casual remark, Arasakumar said, “A person with shame, self-respect and honour does not have to remain there when they deter the growth of the party and restrict rebellious people like me. Some people who did not want BJP to go out of their control were responsible for my self-respect getting affected.” Asked if his views of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership was the same, he said, “I still admire PM’s hard work and dedication to the country. There is no second thought in that. No one can work as hard as he does.” Expressing happiness at defecting to the DMK camp, Viswanathan said that he would function freely hereafter. Though the defection would not be a significant loss to their parent parties, Arasakumar and Viswanathan could be a public embarrassment for AIADMK and BJP owing to the amount of bad press they could contribute.

The duo is only the latest to join the DMK. Not so long ago, Thanga Tamilselvan, who was the propaganda secretary of AMMK leader TTV Dinakaran, had joined the DMK. He had also managed to retain his position in the DMK.