PMK to boycott Assembly bypoll on Jan 30: Ramadoss

The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) would boycott the by-election to Tiruchendur Assembly constituency, scheduled to be held on January 30, Party founder leader S Ramadoss said today.

Talking to newspersons here, Dr Ramadoss said, the by-elections were farce and the PMK would neither contest the bypoll, nor offer support to any party.

The PMK, after being expelled from the DMK-led alliance, forged ties with the Opposition AIADMK for the May Lok Sabha elections and had boycotted the by-elections held to five Assembly seats, couple of months ago, toeing the line taken by the AIADMK.

The PMK, however, snapped its ties with the AIADMK and walked out of the alliance recently, protesting against the filing of a criminal case against top PMK leaders by a senior AIADMK leader.

Alleging that votes were available for a price, Dr Ramadoss said like rise in prices of commodities, the prices of votes have also gone up and its was time for all political parties to come together and adopt a joint resolution that they would not pay money for votes.

Tamil Nadu should set an example for this and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi sould show the way, he said, adding by-elections only lead to various problems. ''It's waste of money and time,'' he lamented.

It remains to be seen, whether the AIADMK, which held the Tiruchendur seat, till former Minister Anitha R Radhakrishnan resigned and joined the DMK, after he was expelled from the AIADMK for anti-party activities, would contest the bypoll.

After the not so impressive performance in the May Lok Sabha elections, the AIADMK had boycotted the bypoll to five Assembly seats, couple of months ago. While its allies, the MDMK and PMK followed suit, the CPI and CPI(M), which joined the AIADMK front before the Lok Sabha polls, ignored the boycott call and contested the by-elections.

The DMK and its ally, the Congress had swept the bypoll, winning all the five seats.

-- (UNI) -- 02MS41.xml

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