Chennai: Piqued over the DMK’s persistent jibe, the ruling AIADMK retorted by claiming that it was the M. Karunanidhi-led party that had indulged in horse trading to save its “minority” government in 2006-11.

Lashing out at the opposition DMK for its horse trading taunt, the AIADMK’s mouthpiece “Namadhu Dr MGR” said the DMK then had 95 MLAs in the 234-member Assembly and ran a “minority government.” “It is they (DMK) who did shameless politics to bring majority for the minority regime by indulging in horse trading with Tirupur Govindasamy and S. Ve. Shekhar who won on AIADMK ticket from Mylapore,” the Tamil daily, said.

CPI (M) Tirupur MLA C. Govindasamy, who had hobnobbed with DMK leaders, was expelled from the party for anti-party activities and he later joined the DMK in 2010. Actor-politician Shekhar was expelled from AIADMK in 2009 following differences with party Chief late J. Jayalalithaa. He functioned as an “unattached member” since then and joined BJP after a brief stint in Congress.
During 2006-11, though DMK did not have numbers to make up majority on its own, it had support of 34 Congress MLAs and AIADMK had 61 MLAs. Comparing the past with the present situation, the party’s daily said the AIADMK now had a majority with 122 MLAs.

In a veiled reference to former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam-led faction, the party in a conciliatory note said, “those who are joining and who will be joining belong to the same family. All contested on the same symbol (Two-leaves).” Legislator V. C. Arukutty, who had backed Mr Panneerselvam, had recently joined Edappadi faction.