Dhinakaran removes minister from key party post

Sidelined AIADMK Deputy General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran today removed another minister from a key party post as part of organisational shake-up.
He "relieved" Higher Education Minister K P Anbalagan as the party's Dharmapuri district secretary and bifurcated the Dindigul district unit.
In a statement, Dhinakaran, nephew of jailed party chief V K Sasikala, announced replacing Anbalagan with local leader D K Rajendran.
Anbalagan is the fifth AIADMK minister to be stripped of party posts by Dhinakaran who is involved in a tussle for power with Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
Two days back, Dhinakaran had removed four ministers from party posts in a bid to assert his authority in AIADMK (Amma).

He had appointed a number of his supporters, including MLAs, to various posts.

Today, he also removed Dindigul secretary V Marudaraj and announced that the district was being bifurcated organisation- wise as Dindigul East and West.
Dindigul East would cover four Assembly constituencies while the other would cover three, he said.
Dhinakaran appointed R Thangadurai MLA and K P Nallasamy as secretaries of Dindigul East and West units.
Shaking up the party's medical wing, he relieved S Muthiah and Lok Sabha MP P Venugopal as its president and secretary respectively.
Dhinakaran elevated the medical wing's joint secretary K Kathirkamu, MLA, presently camping at Puducherry with other pro-Dhinakaran legislators, as president of the party's medical wing.

Muthiah, an AIADMK MLA from Paramakudi, would be the medical wing secretary.
All appointments were being made with the "approval" of AIADMK general secretary Sasikala, Dhinakaran said.