Another defector walks in: ex-AIADMK MLA Murugumaran joins TVK on bypoll eve

Dharapuram: On the final day of campaigning for the October 6 Dharapuram by-election, the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) welcomed another defector into its fold on Sunday, as former AIADMK legislator and organising secretary N. Murugumaran resigned from the opposition party and joined the TVK in Dharapuram. Murugumaran, who represented Kattumannarkoil in the Assembly twice, in 2011 and 2016, met TVK general secretary and Rural Development and Water Resources Minister N. Anand before announcing his switch. Announcing his resignation earlier in the day, he said he remained dissatisfied over being denied the opportunity to contest from his former constituency in the 2026 Assembly election. The AIADMK leadership, he alleged, had encouraged him to work extensively in Kattumannarkoil but subsequently fielded him from the reserved Tittakudi constituency. In Tittakudi, Murugumaran finished third with 42,502 votes, behind DMK candidate C.V. Ganesan, who won with 63,106 votes, and TVK candidate Rajasekhar, who polled 60,477 votes to take second place. Murugumaran maintained that he could have won from Kattumannarkoil had the leadership allotted him the seat. In his resignation statement, the former MLA accused the AIADMK leadership of giving preference to candidates with substantial financial resources while overlooking those who had worked sincerely for the organisation. He claimed that ordinary workers, people from poorer backgrounds and those without crores of rupees were increasingly unable to secure political opportunities within the party, and that such an approach was pushing the AIADMK towards becoming the third force in Tamil Nadu politics. He also alleged that he had not been given due importance in Kattumannarkoil during the party's campaign programme centred on its pledge to "save Tamil Nadu" in 2026. Describing the decision as a betrayal, he said he could not forget being encouraged to work day and night without receiving the opportunity he sought. His departure adds to the string of defections by former ministers and party functionaries following the AIADMK's defeat in the Assembly election. The timing is hard to miss. Murugumaran's switch comes as the curtains fall on campaigning for a bypoll that exists only because two AIADMK MLAs, Maragatham Kumaravel and P. Sathyabama, resigned and joined the ruling TVK, which has renominated both on its whistle symbol. The Madras High Court declined to stay the bypoll but orally warned against turning elections into a "mockery of democracy", questioning the resign-and-recontest route. The TVK's candidate in Dharapuram is Sathyabama herself. The whistle, it seems, is recruiting loudest from the very party the bypoll was engineered out of.