AIADMK (Amma) deputy general secretary TTV Dinakaran denies rift, rules out dropping the health minister

Chennai: The two months old Edapaddi Panaliswami government is in trouble. Senior party leaders of Sasikala faction of ruling AIADMK want to sacrifice state health minister C Vijayabhaskar to save the party and government and some of the more courageous ones want the party to distance itself from the Sasikala family itself.

Party sources said that senior leaders feel that continuing with Vijayabhaskar, who has been summoned for IT investigations once again on Monday, would not be proper in the wake of mounting evidence of his alleged links with huge sums of money and incriminating documents recovered from his premises during IT raids.

According to sources, Lok Sabha deputy speaker Thambi Durai met Vijayabhaskar on Saturday and is believed to have sounded him out on the feelings inside the party to him. Incidentally at a meeting convened by Dinakaran on Friday, heated exchanges took place wherein ministers also sought the removal of the health minister.

Many in the ruling dispensation link these IT raids to the central government led by BJP, but the local BJP leaders here dismiss such rumors saying that “the BJP will come to power on its own and not through back door as was being alleged by ruling AIADMK (Sasikala faction).

But for the average ruling party MLA, the developments after RK Nagar election cancellation are revealing enough and many are touching base with OPS faction. A senior leader in the OPS camp said that many are in touch and at the appropriate time would dump Dinakaran and Sasikala family.

If talks fructify, the two factions can come together and this can happen sooner, rather than later, the source unwilling to be identified said.

Dinakaran himself denied any revolt in the family although there were suggestions about Vijayabhaskar. “But there will be no change in the council of ministers,” Dinakaran told press persons asserting that the health minister will continue.

Incidentally, it is the health minister and his recent conduct – during Kuvathur resort incident when he was in-charge of keeping the MLAs locked up at the sea-side luxury resort – that has come into discussion once again with MLAs holding him responsible for the current mess too. It was his recent activities that brought him under the IT lens.

Which is why senior leaders from both the sides have opened channels of communication, sources said.