Both Chief Minister Edapadi K Palanisamy and Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam chose the MGR Centenary celebration platform to come down heavily on party rebel TTV Dhinakaran.

About Dhinkaran’s victory in the recently concluded RK Nagar bypoll, Palanisamy said he was `trying to capture power and the party through the back door’ without doing anything for the party.

He had adopted a `hawala formula’ to win the election, which was more than the infamous `Thirumangalam’ formula (where DMK had won a bypoll reportedly by distributing money some years ago), Palanisamy said.

He said only a `criminal’ would adopt such a formula people would decide who the betrayers were and `teach them an appropriate lesson at the opportune time’.

Countering Dhinakaran remarks about the future of the Government, Palanisamy said, “Dhinakaran will not remain for long in his present position and nobody knows where Dhinakaran, who was saying the Government will not last till March, will be then.” He indirectly hinted that Dhinakaran would land in jail by then.

Paneerselvam said he was the ward representative when he met Dhinakaran for the first time. “When I was 19 years old and in the AIADMK, Dhinakaran was an LKG student who had come to learn politics in Periyakulam,” he said.
Dhinakaran was responsible for handing over Katchaitheevu to Sri Lanka, Paneerselvam alleged and said that in the Cauvery River Dispute too, he had supported Karnataka and betrayed Tamil Nadu.