After reshuffle in western region, DMK rejigging southern districts

Coimbatore: Weeks after DMK changed a number of district functionaries in the western region, the prime command has caused a an identical reshuffle in southern Tamil Nadu. District secretaries in Madurai, Theni and Ramanathapuram were changed on Sunday.
The Madurai city north district and Madurai city south district have been merged into one and K Thalapathy can be heading it as city district organiser.

Former district secretaries V Velusamy, P Kudalandaivelu, P Essar Gopi, C Chinnammal, PM Sethuramalingam, M Jayaraman, Tamilarasi and P Saravanan are the setting up committee members in the newly created Madurai city district DMK. None of them are MLAs.

DMK operating president MK Stalin plans to overtake the top brass in the entire districts in the coming days. But the Kongu belt in western Tamil Nadu is where the birthday celebration is anticipated to spend extra power.

Coimbatore and its adjacent districts have proved to be a very powerful as well as the weakest for DMK in the race to the assembly. Disconnect between DMK and the citizens in the region hasn't ever been so apparent because it did in 2016 elections when the birthday celebration lost 9 of the 10 segments in Coimbatore, gained nothing in Erode and managed to win just one or two in other districts.

Two years after the bruising defeat, Stalin has said that the birthday celebration would have come to power in the final assembly election if DMK had gained a couple of extra seats in the region. Well aware of the significance of the region, Stalin began a rejig of birthday celebration equipment in Western belt, giving marching orders to a few district secretaries.

Absence of widespread faces like Veerapandi Arumugam, groupism in district units and uninspiring performance by current functionaries are the obvious causes for DMK’s debacle. Cadres say there have been no acquainted faces in the district point. “In spite of such a lot corruption in the executive, not one of the DMK leaders are even taking at the local AIADMK leadership,” rued a former union secretary.

In Coimbatore, Meena Loganathan fielded by DMK all through the 2016 elections overtly blamed rival factions of not operating for her. Even after the drubbing, Anna Arivalayam was flooded with petitions of favouritism by district secretaries in Coimbatore.

“Earlier, there have been two district units. There were two factions in each and every unit, one belonging to these maintaining posts and any other vying for the ones posts. After the district unit was cut up into 4, it become 8 factions,” said a birthday celebration functionary.

Now, 4 birthday celebration units have been made into 3 and the lone MLA from the district, N Karthik, has been given the coveted district organiser publish.

The ongoing workout is aimed at revamping the birthday celebration from grassroot-level to usher in sure changes forward of the elections, besides hunting down negative elements, DMK males say.

“The changes are introduced according to reviews by the independent inquiry committee comprising advocates, who're visiting all districts. It is not just aimed on the coming near near election, however aimed on the enlargement of the birthday celebration,” primary deputy secretary of the birthday celebration Durai Murugan said.

Party sources said that the independent committee has completed its inquiry into the court cases in Vellore, Tiruvannamalai and neighbouring districts. But a number of cadres really feel that this isn't going to deliver the much-required vigour into the birthday celebration to win an election.

“The new set of other folks appointed don't seem to be new at all. They are old timers. Instead, recent leaders should be appointed on the district point,” a birthday celebration functionary from Madurai said.