Cracking the whip against a senior party functionary for anti-party activities, All India Anna DMK (AIADMK) General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) on Tuesday suspended former minister and party organizing secretary Dalawai N Sundaram for flagging off the RSS route march in Kanyakumari district.

While the AIADMK had snapped ties with the BJP and walked out of the NDA ahead of the 2024 LS poll, the senior leader gracing an RSS event had not gone well with the party leadership. It was unpalatable at a time when the party is assiduously wooing the minorities with EPS reiterating every now and then that the AIADMK would not align with the BJP.

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Wielding the axe, EPS in a statement announced the suspension of Dalawai Sundaram from the party for participating in an event organised by the RSS and thereby bringing disrepute to the party. “It is against the principles and policies of the party. He is being removed from the responsibilities of the party’s Organising Secretary and Kanniyakumari District Secretary,” he said.

The southern coastal Kanyakumari district is communally sensitive and the only district with a high Christian population in the state where the saffron brigade has a consolidation.

He had been a minister in the Jayalalithaa government and a Rajya Sabaha MP as well the Tamil Nadu Government’s Special Representative in the national capital.

Reacting to his suspension, Dalawai Sundaram told the media that he is not bothered about the disciplinary action for flagging off the RSS route march at Esanthimangalam on the occasion of Vijayadashami. “I had participated in the event on an invite from the RSS as the local MLA,” he said.