PMK blames DMK for loss

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Blaming the DMK for his party’s poll debacle, PMK leader and former Union minister Anbumani Ramadoss said that his party was drubbed in the recent Assembly elections due to the anti-incumbency factor.

Addressing the party’s general council of Chennai district here on Sunday, Dr Anbumani said, “People wanted a change in governance... the neutral, the first time voters and also the youth voted against the DMK leading to the defeat of the PMK”.

Arguing that winning or losing at the polls was quite common for political parties, he said his party would bounce back as defeat was a transient phenomenon.

Although the party had contested from 30 Assembly constituencies, it had secured over 70,000 votes in 18 constituencies. He recalled that during the 1991 elections, the DMK had won only one constitunecy and the PMK too had won a single seat.

The party secured four seats in the 1996 elections whereas the AIADMK, which was now ruling the state was able to win merely two constituencies then, he added.

It would be wrong to construe that a party had failed after its show in the elections, he argued.

The AIADMK had obtained 54 percent of votes and the PMK had garnered 40 percent, he said and added, “the PMK has more prospects to grow. It can bring about transformation in Tamil Nadu which has not witnessed change for nearly four decades.”

On the PMK’s general council meeting scheduled to be held in Chennai on July 27, he said the party would discuss and take crucial decisions.

He announced that his party would contest from 75 wards in the Chennai corporation election.