Waiting for a call from PM: Ramadoss

By Radha Venkatesan

TINDIVANAM, JULY 14. The PMK general council today gave an overwhelming call for rejoining the BJP-led NDA at the Centre, but wanted the party to go it alone in the local bodies elections in October.

``We are awaiting an invitation from the Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, to join the NDA,'' the PMK founder-leader, Dr. S. Ramadoss, declared after the meeting at his Thailapuram farm house near here.

Amidst a unanimous call from the functionaries for going it alone in the local bodies election, he urged the PMK men to gear themselves up ``to prove the party's strength in the panchayat polls.''

Later talking to the media, Dr.Ramadoss, who had recently snapped ties with the AIADMK, indicated that he was keeping open the option of aligning with the DMK. ``My partymen don't want to beg for seats with anyone; however, we will take a decision depending on the political situation prevailing then''.

Significantly, the general council adopted a resolution urging the Centre to intervene and initiate action against the police officers who allegedly ``tortured'' the DMK president, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, while arresting him on June 30.

Launching a tirade against Ms. Jayalalithaa, who, he charged, had humiliated him in a ``planned manner'', Dr. Ramadoss asserted that she owed her Chief Ministership to the PMK. ``I challenge her party to contest again in any one of the 40 constituencies which the AIADMK won solely because of the PMK's strength.''

Earlier, setting the stage for the PMK's re-entry into the NDA, the party functionaries including the MP., Mr. P. T. Elangovan, and the MLAs, Mr. I. Ganesan, Mr. Kadu Vetti Guru and Mr. Murugavel Rajan, showered praise on Mr.Vajpayee, describing him as ``one of the greatest leaders''.

However, they stoutly opposed any tie-up with the DMK, stating both the AIADMK and the DMK were like ``old collapsing buildings'' and ``speeding vehicles without brakes''.

The PMK leader's son, Dr. R. Anbumani, in his over hour-long address narrated the ``series of humiliations'' - from allotment of Assembly seats to denial of a Rajya Sabha seat - heaped on the party by Ms. Jayalalithaa, which made the PMK quit the front.

At the end of the over five-hour long meeting, the general council authorised Dr. Ramadoss to take an appropriate decision on rejoining the NDA and the alliance strategy for the local bodies poll.

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Section  : Southern States
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