AIADMK achieves 'victorious debacle' in Erode East bypoll: Jayakumar

Calling the Erode East Constituency bypoll result as “victorious debacle” for the AIADMK party, the party senior leader and former minister D Jayakumar on Friday unleashed a scathying attack on the ruling DMK party that it secured a “temporary” and “fake victory” in the bypoll for its alliance party. “Despite the ruling dispensation using all its might and spending Rs 350 crore, the AIADMK secured nearly 45,000 votes. For us, it is a victorious debacle, but for them, it was not a victory,” Jayakumar told reporters on Erode East bypoll results. He continued that they instilled fear in the DMK and its government in the bypoll. It prompted them to prevent the voters from attending the AIADMK leaders’ election campaigns. It was unprecedented as the voters were herded into camps and held them captive. “Unlike the DMK, we did not give money to vote. We banked on the welfare schemes implemented in our regime and good governance by our leader (Edappadi K Palaniswami),” he said. Dubbing the Election Commission as “zero”, Jayakumar hit out at the commission as it failed to act upon their complaints and remained mute spectators to the brazen violation of the model code of conduct of the ruling party and its alliance. When reporters sought response on BJP state leader Annamalai’s statement the AIADMK lost the poll as it did not perform as an unified force, the AIADMK leader deflected from answering the question by stating that “I will not get tempted for such a question.” He continued that AIADMK leader EPS had already made it clear that Annamalai did not make such remarks. On ousted former general secretary of the party V K Sasikala’s remark that the AIADMK face an embarrassing loss in the election as it remains a divided house and she would soon unite them, Jayakumar rebuked that AIADMK remained united under the helm of EPS. “She can give a try to unite OPS (O Panneerselvam) and TTV Dhinakaran,” he added. On the case filed by OPS faction in the Madras High Court, challenging resolutions passed in AIADMK's July 11 General Council meeting, the former minister said that the legal wing of the party would take care of it.