The district functionaries’ meeting called by PMK founder and leader Dr S. Ramadoss on Friday turned into a damp squib, laying bare the unending fight between senior Ramadoss and his son Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss.
Only 12 out of the total 108 district secretaries attended the meeting convened by Ramadoss at his farmhouse in Thailapuram, near the Tindivanam district. This is the first meeting convened by Ramadoss after he revoked his Anbumani’s duties as president, instead appointing him as the working president of the party.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the meeting, Ramadoss said that a proper invitation had been sent to all the district secretaries and Anbumani.
“Anbumani may be on the way to attend the meeting.”
He said that the other district secretaries could have skipped the meeting due to exhaustion after they participated in the recently concluded Vanniyar Youth conference held at Thiruvidanthai near Mamallapuram on May 11. He clarified that some of the leaders had also informed him over the phone of their inability to participate in the meeting.
Notably, Ramadoss’ statement in the meeting today-that the “lion’s legs have not become weak nor lion’s aggression”-while replying to a demand from a section’s party members to retire from politics, clearly indicated that he was not ready to give up.
He also declared that the party would contest the 2026 assembly polls in alliance with other parties.
“I have taught them the art of winning 50 constituencies by even lying down on the floor,” Ramadoss said, claiming that there was no factional feud in the party.
However, the reason for their absence is attributed to the widening rift between Ramadoss and his son. With little politics involved in the rift, party insiders say that it is “purely a family feud spilling out in the open”.
It is said that the senior Ramadoss wants to take control of the party to give a proper space and share to his daughters, while Anbumani is opposed to it.
The fight between the father-son duo first came out in the open during the party’s general council meeting. He wanted to appoint his grandson Mukundan, while Anbumani opposed it and said that anyone in the party could come and meet him at his office at Panaiyur.
Later, Ramadoss called himself the president of the party, while Anbumani was re-designated as its working president.
In the meantime, during the mega Vanniyar conference organised on Chithra Pournami, Ramadoss said that he would decide on the alliance used to contest the upcoming assembly general elections in 2026.
While junior Ramadoss insists that the party align with the BJP, his father is yet to make up his mind.
In the 2024 assembly polls, Anbumani chose to align with the BJP only to find a space for his wife Soumya Anbumani in the political arena. However, Ramadoss at the time wanted to align either with the DMK or the AIADMK in the Lok Sabha polls.
In the ensuing elections, Anbumani wants to continue the BJP alliance, while Ramadoss feels that continuing in the alliance with AIADMK in the NDA fold may not benefit the party as there may not be vote transfer in most of the districts in Northern Tamil Nadu.
However, the fight is not just because of political decisions, as bickering within the family has a huge role to play. The financial dealings in few of the trusts owned by the family and the educational institutions, which are said to be lucrative, are another major reason for the fall out. While the older Ramadoss wants to settle it equally among all the siblings, his son was not willing to settle, sources say.
At a time when the BJP wants to have a rainbow alliance in Tamil Nadu to fight the DMK, the father-son fight might even turn into a new headache for the NDA.