Former Andipatti MLA and AMMK propaganda secretary Thanga Tamilselvan, who fell out with the party leader TTV Dhinakaran, joined the DMK in the presence of its chief M K Stalin at party headquarters Anna Arivalayam in Chennai on Friday. Tamilselvan became the third leader from AMMK after Senthil Balaji and VP Kalairajan to join the DMK.
Tamilselvan’s quarrel with Dhinakaran come out in the open after an audio clip of him passing intemperate remarks about Dhinakaran to AMMK Madurai co-ordinator Chella Pandian went viral on social media. The next day, Dhinakaran held a press conference and said Tamilselvan’s behavior wasn’t aligning with party principles and that a new propaganda secretary will be appointed by July 1.
In these circumstances, reports of Tamilselvan joining the AIADMK started to emerge. Sources close to Tamilselvan said Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy was ready to accept Tamilselvan, however, his deputy O Panneerselvam was firm against admitting him into the party.
On Friday, Tamilselvan along with some of the AMMK functionaries joined the DMK.

“In the elections, people of Tamil Nadu took a good decision. MK Stalin is the only person who can provide good leadership in the state. We should respect Thalapathy’s work; he accepted the people from AIADMK without animosity and treated them well. Parties with unitary leadership can only function well; DMK followed it and won the elections. After the demise of Amma, there are multiple leaderships inside AIADMK, they are nothing but a BJP benami and I don’t want to join that party losing my self-respect,” he said.