Several people were injured in a clash between All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam workers and supporters of Rajya Sabha member Sasikala Pushpa outside the ruling party’s office in Chennai.
One of the injured was Pushpa’s husband Lingeswara Thilagan.
Pushpa was expelled from the AIADMK sometime back but she did not resign from the upper house of parliament.
The general council meeting of AIADMK is to be held near here today and Pushpa had announced that she would contest for the party’s top post of general secretary which fell vacant following the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
Several party officials had pleaded with Jayalalithaa’s close aide V K Sasikala to take over as the party’s general secretary which was opposed by Pushpa.
Police were deployed outside the AIADMK office in the morning, anticipating the arrival of Pushpa to file the nomination form to contest the top party post.
Hell broke out when Pushpa’s husband and others entered the office to submit the nomination papers. The staff refused to accept the papers saying the senior staff were not present.
“Sasikala Pushpa, her husband and a general council member, K S Mani, from Mumbai wanted to file the nomination papers,” according to sources.
Soon the crowd pounced on Pushpa’s husband and supporters and assaulted them.
The sources Pushpa was sitting in a car outside the office when the clashes erupted.
Reacting to the violence, Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani told a Tamil television channel that Pushpa had no right to stake a claim to the AIADMK leadership.
“Who is she? She has no links with the party. She was expelled by Amma (former chief minister Jayalalithaa). There is no doubt that Chinnamma (V K Sasikala) will take over as party general secretary. This is a unanimous demand of partymen and the desire of 1.5crore partymen.”
AIADMK spokesman Avadi Kumar said: “The violence was instigated to deliberately create a ruckus on the eve of the party general council meeting.”