Dharapuram (Tamil Nadu), Sep 30 (PTI) TVK’s candidate for the Oct 6 Dharapuram bypolls, P Sathyabama, on Wednesday broke down while defending her decision to join the ruling party and Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay comforted her by his gentle pat on her hands.
At CM Vijay’s campaign here, Sathyabama, who joined the TVK following resignation of her MLA post and after quitting the AIADMK, asked, “what was my mistake; I am being targeted, allegations in bad taste are being levelled against me and obscene words are used.”
Her remarks comes against the background of the Opposition, including the AIADMK, targeting the MLAs who quit the AIADMK and joined the TVK over alleged horse-trading.
The TVK candidate said that for about two months she had not even looked into her mobile phones in view of online trolling aimed at her.
Sathyabama said she was a loyalist of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and she had quit the party as she was anguished about the “proposal” of the AIADMK brass to join forces with the DMK to form a government, and hence she joined the TVK.
She praised Vijay as a “clean leader who became the chief minister by not giving away even a ruppee (to lure voters).”
She wondered if such a clean leader would have allowed horse-trading for her entry into the TVK and subsequent nomination as party candidate in Dharapuram.
Also, she asked if she could boldly seek votes from the people if she had committed anything wrong.
At one point, when she denounced use of obsene words against her for the sake of power and broke down, Vijay comforted her for a moment, by placing his reassuring hand on her hands, and stood beside her in silence.
“I did not do anything wrong,” she asserted once again.
She said she joined the ruling party as it would help her “do good for the people of my constituency. I did not even think of anything else.”
In his addres, Vijay rejected the horse-trading allegation.
Asserting that iconic leaders M G Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa had opposed the “evil force DMK” tooth and nail, he wondered if it was not an insult to such stalwarts, if a “conspiracy was hatched to form a government by joining hands with the DMK.”
That was the reason why an anugished Sathyabama quit her MLA post and resigned from the AIADMK and joined the TVK, Vijay said.
“There was no horse-trading. She duly resigned her post and joined the TVK. When we have the people’s support, where is the question of horse-trading. People never made such allegations of horse-trading. It is the DMK and the AIADMK who are spreading such slander,” the TVK founder-chief said.
In the rally, TVK leader and Health Minister KG Arunraj reiterated his party position on SIR and opposed the exercise. PTI VGN VGN ROH
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