Senior DMK Leader Stripped off Party Post, Days After Meeting TN BJP Chief

Chennai, May 21 (PTI) DMK president M K Stalin on Thursday removed senior party leader V P Duraisamy as deputy general secretary and replaced him with Rajya Sabha member Anthiyur P Selvaraj.

Duraisamy was removed from his post days after he called on BJP state president L Murugan.

Speculation is now rife Duraisamy may join the saffron party.

In a DMK release, Stalin announced the decision to remove Duraisamy from the party post but did not mention the reason for the action.

Duraisamy had served as Deputy Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from 1989 to 1991 and 2006 to 2011, and his meeting with Murugan on May 18 had set off a buzz in the state political circles, considering the sharp differences between the BJP and DMK over a number of issues.

Duraisamy described the meeting as a "courtesy call" on Thursday, adding both he and Murugan hailed from Namakkal district and that they had contested the 2016 assembly election against each other.

The BJP too had earlier described the meeting as a courtesy call and that Duraisamy had greeted Murugan for taking over as the state BJP chief recently.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)