FIR Filed Against Sasikala's Nephew Dhinakaran in EC Bribery Case

In mounting trouble for the Sasikala camp, the crime branch of the Delhi police has filed an FIR against AIADMK deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran for attempting to bribe officials of the Election Commission of India in order to get the 'two-leaves' symbol allotted to his camp.

Delhi police public relations officer Madhur Verma has confirmed to The News Minute that an FIR has been filed against Dhinakaran and that they will be issuing summons to him for questioning soon.

Rumours suggest that senior ministers from the Sasikala camp are likely to shift to O Paneerselvam faction, following the pressure on Dhinakaran to drop Tamil Nadu health minister Vijayabaskar from the cabinet, following the IT raids last week.

Following a meeting among its key members on Sunday, the OPS camp told Times of India that there has been a "breakthrough" since there is rebellion in the Dhinakaran camp.

Veteran leader E Madhusudanan, former minister K Pandiarajan, MP V Maitreyan, former minister KP Munusamy, and



former MLA JCD Prabhakar, and former Assembly speaker PH Pandian were reportedly part of the meeting.

Sources told Times of India that the meeting was to discuss strategy and a big announcement can be expected on Wednesday.

With Panneerselvam not indicating a likely merger between the warring AIADMK factions, his loyalists are hopeful of more crossovers to their camp post the IT raids.

A week after the Income Tax department raided properties belonging to Health Minister C Vijayabaskar, there was pressure mounting on the government to sack him.

A meeting of senior ministers was held at Dhinakaran's residence in Chennai on Friday, where the issue of a cabinet reshuffle was discussed. Sources had told TNM earlier that current Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami and his associates were keen to drop the Health Minister.

A few reports in Tamil media suggested that Dhinakaran was asked to step down as deputy general secretary by the senior leaders of the Sasikala faction.