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Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham leader V Gopalaswamy has ridiculed DMK leader M Karunanidhi's suggestion that the MDMK and the Puthiya Tamizhagam withdraw from the bypoll in Andipatti if they sincerely wanted to defeat AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa.
Speaking to reporters in Tiruchi on Friday, Karunanidhi had said, "We can accommodate them later. There are three more by-elections for the Tamil Nadu assembly."
"This is a fraudulent and misleading statement. Karunanidhi had earlier said that the DMK would boycott the polls. Now he is telling us to withdraw," V Gopalaswamy, popularly known as Vaiko, said on Saturday when rediff.com caught up with him at a remote village 12 km from Andipatti campaigning for the bypoll.
"During the May assembly elections, Karunanidhi humiliated us and forced us to leave the DMK-led front in which the BJP was a partner. Today is the 19th day of the campaign and now he wants to work out a deal. This is ridiculous," he said.
Vaiko said that the DMK leader is making this offer as he is worried about the MDMK's growth in rural Tamil Nadu.
He tried the same strategy to undercut MGR (former chief minister and ADMK founder M G Ramachandran), he confided.
When MGR was ailing and hospitalised, Karunanidhi had appealed to voters to enable him to become the chief minister as MGR was not in a position to govern, Vaiko alleged, adding that the DMK leader promised to vacate the chair for MGR once he recovered.
Of course, the electorate preferred an ailing MGR to Karunanidhi and Andipatti voters even made history by electing a person who was in a hospital in the US as their MLA.
"Both the DMK and the ADMK are revisionist forces. They have totally given up the ideals of Anna (DMK founder Annadurai)," he said.
Despite being wedged between the two Dravidian giants, Vaiko promised to fight on.
Puthiya Tamizhagam's Dr Krishnaswamy, who was also busy with the poll campaign, could not be contacted for his comments.
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