TN: 'Karate' Thiagarajan rejoins Congress

It was happy home coming for expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and Chennai Corporation Deputy Mayor 'Karate' R Thiagarajan as he rejoined his parent party, Congress, on Sunday.

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Thiagarajan along with his supporters joined the Congress at the party headquarters - Sathyamoorthy Bhavan, where Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president M Krishnasamy, reinducted him into the party after a gap of six years.

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Thiagarajan camped in New Delhi and cleared the decks for his re-entry into the Congress. The official communication came on Saturday when All India Congress Committee Treasurer Motilal Vora sent a letter to the TNCC chief that party president Sonia Gandhi had approved his readmission in the party.

The Karate exponent, who 're-surfaced' on April 13 after he went 'missing' since October last year after he fell out with AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, would campaign for the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance in the May eight assembly polls.

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Thiagarajan began his political career in the Congress in 1986 and became a close confidante of late G K Moopanar. He quit the Congress and joined the now defunct Tamil Maanila Congress when Moopanar floated the party in 1996, in protest against Congress forging an alliance with the AIADMK. After Thiagarajan quit the TMC and joined the AIADMK, he was elected as Councillor in the 2001 local bodies polls and appointed as Deputy Mayor by the AIADMK.

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Soon after, DMK Leader M K Stalin had stepped down as Mayor after the government brought in the controversial 'one man one post' rule, Thiagarajan became the de-factor Mayor.

However, after he fell out with Jayalalithaa, Thiagarajan, apprehending threat to his life, went 'missing' after a self-imposed exile for nearly seven months. He was expelled from the AIADMK a couple of days after he went 'underground,' before resurfacing on April 13 when the Election Commission issued the notification for the elections, taking control of the situation in the state.