Day of Sackings: Sasikala and Madusudanan Give Each other the Sack

Chennai: Sending a strong message to her detractors, AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala today sacked party Presidium Chairman E Madusudanan from the primary membership, a day after he switched over to the rebel camp led by Chief Minister O Panneerselvam.

Madusudanan had been removed from all posts besides the primary membership for going against the party principles and bringing disrepute to it, she said in a statement here.

She also announced the appointment of former minister K A Sengottaiyan as the new AIADMK Presidium Chairman.

Sengottaiyan was relieved as the party's Organisation Secretary, a post to which he was appointed last week.

Sasikala urged the party workers not to have any truck with Madusudanan and said they should extend their cooperation to Sengottaiyan.

Reacting to his 'expulsion' from the party, Madhusudanan told "She cannot expel me as I have already expelled her from the party."

"The bylaws framed by our founder M G Ramachandran always wanted a person to be elected general secretary only by cadre of the party. By that scale, the election of Sasikala is null and void and therefore she is not the party's general secretary," said Madhusudanan.

Madusudanan yesterday extended his support to Panneerselvam, saying "he wanted to "safeguard" the party.

"To protect AIADMK, everybody should join hands with OPS (Panneerselvam)," he had said.

Sasikala had removed Panneerselvam from the Treasurer post immediately after his revolt, but he has maintained that being a temporary General Secretary, she does not have the powers to appoint or remove party functionaries.

Sasikala had appointed another senior leader Dindigul C Srinivasan as the Treasurer.

Insisting that he continued to be the Treasurer, Panneerselvam had on Feb 8 written to two banks here asking them not to allow anyone else to operate the party's accounts.