PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss has sought the support of opposition parties, including the AIADMK, for his party candidate in the coming bypoll for Pennagaram constituency.

Citing past victories in the 1991 and 2006 polls, where the party contested alone and won, he said based on this, other opposition parties should support PMK.

He said all opposition parties should join hands for democratic rule. ‘As a first step, they should support PMK in the Pennagaram bypoll,’ he told reporters here.

Alleging that political parties were bribing voters, Ramadoss said, ‘It is not a ‘by-election’, but a ‘buy-election.’
The PMK will raise the drinking water problem in the Pennagaram constituency and the half-century delay in implementing the Hogenakkal Integrated Drinking Water Scheme, Ramadoss said.

‘If AIADMK fields its candidate, we will criticise both the parties and their policies,’ Ramadoss remarked.
‘We are not appealing for support just because we have announced our candidate. PMK has a good chance of winning with a margin of 40,000 votes. We have to defeat the DMK to protect democracy,’ he said.

The Vanniar community based PMK was part of the AIADMK led front in the last Lok Sabha election, but it later snapped ties with the party led by J Jayalalithaa.

The bypoll was slated for 20 January, but was cancelled due to Pongal festival after AIADMK and other opposition parties sought its postponement.

The Election Commission has said it would issue a fresh notification on the bypoll. The DMK and Congress, however, wanted the election to be held as scheduled and the ruling party had even fielded P N P Inbasekaran, son of P N Periannan, whose death has forced the bypoll, as its candidate.

The AIADMK is yet to announce its candidate. The Communist Party of India (CPI) has already announced its support to the AIADMK in the bypoll. It is to be noted that Ramadoss’s earlier letter to two Communist parties — CPI and CPI(M) — requesting support for PMK’s candidate G K Mani’s son Tamizhkumaran remained unacknowledged.