Chennai:
In more trouble to actor-politician Vijayakanth's party, one more DMDK legislator today met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, joining five dissident legislators of the party, who had met the AIADMK supremo earlier.
R Santhi of Senthamangalam constituency (Namakkal district), called on Ms Jayalalithaa at the state Secretariat in Chennai and presented a memorandum to her regarding constituency-related demands.
Having faced the 2011 elections as allies, AIADMK and DMDK, which is the main opposition party in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, parted ways following a heated exchange between Mr Vijayakanth and Ms Jayalalithaa in the House last year.
Since then, five DMDK legislators - R Sundarrajan, K Tamil Alagan, S Michael Rayappan, C Arun Pandian and T Suresh Kumar - had called on the chief minister and appreciated her government at different points of time, which has not gone down well with the DMDK high command.
Early this year, Mr Rayappan was assaulted by some DMDK legislators after he was allotted separate seating arrangement in the Assembly along with other dissident MLAs. Six of his attackers were given a year's suspension which was commuted to six months later by the Speaker P Dhanapal.
DMDK has 29 MLAs in the 234-member state Assembly.