Anbumani can be PMK chief after 2026 polls, says Ramadoss
PMK's founder S Ramadoss on Thursday announced that he will decide on whom to have an alliance with and reiterated that he will continue to head the party until the 2026 assembly elections.
'I went to his place; he (Anbumani) came to mine, but in the end, the discussions ended in a stalemate. Now, it's either me or him,' Ramadoss told reporters at his residence in Villupuram.
'Until the 2026 assembly elections, I am the president of PMK,' Ramadoss said. 'I will decide on the alliance and the candidates and after 2026 Anbumani can take over. I will never expel him from the party.'
PMK, an influential party in Tamil Nadu with a 5% core vote bank from the Vanniyar community, is a key ally of the NDA. Over the decades, PMK has swung between the DMK and AIADMK. PMK has been in turmoil with the rift between the father and son.
Recently, Ramadoss said that he wanted to align with the AIADMK but Anbumani insisted that they remain with the BJP.
Ramadoss said that tensions with his son started seven years ago at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in in Delhi when Anbumani told him that he would take care of the party. Ramadoss said that it was at that moment he learnt that Anbumani wanted to fully control the PMK, long before he was made its president in 2023.
Meanwhile, Anbumani did not react to his father's remarks on Thursday but released statements criticising the ruling DMK government in Tamil Nadu and offered condolences for the plane crash in Ahmedabad.
On June 5, Anbumani met his father at his residence but no truce seemed to have been called. After Anbumani left, RSS ideologue Gurumurthy and sidelined AIADMK leader and former Chennai mayor Saidai Duraisamy met senior Ramadoss. Last week, Ramadoss was in Chennai to meet Gurumurthy at his residence.
On May 29, senior Ramadoss told reporters that he regretted making Anbumani a Union minister (in the UPA-I government) when he was only 35-year-old. He also said that though he wanted to align with the AIADMK, Anbumani and his wife convinced him to stay with the BJP.
To be clear, Ramadoss was only confirming on record what has been known off the record ever since the AIADMK left the BJP in 2023 before patching up this April. After the split, those in the NDA including PMK stayed with the BJP with only the DMDK (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) taking the AIADMK's side.
According to Ramadoss, the PMK and AIADMK are natural allies and said that they would have won 10 seats together in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls which was swept by the ruling DMK-led coalition.
On April 11, the 85-year-old patriarch took over the party from his son and successor Anbumani. The father made himself president of the PMK once again and announced that Anbumani would be its working president on the day Union home minister Amit Shah arrived in Chennai.
On the following day, Shah announced that the BJP and AIADMK have patched up after 19 months and will fight the 2026 elections together.
Anbumani then challenged his father asserting that he continues to be the party chief since he was elected by PMK's general council. Anbumani's Rajya Sabha tenure ends in July. Senior Ramadoss accused his son of threatening PMK officer bearers against attending his meeting in which only 13 out of 220 party office bearers turned up on May 16.
Ramadoss and Anbumani have been sparring publicly since December 2024 after Anbumani objected to Ramadoss' decision to appoint his nephew, P Mukundan as the youth wing chief of PMK.
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