Chennai: Ten former MLAs, including eight from opposition DMDK who had quit as legislators on Sunday, on Thursday joined AIADMK in the presence of party general secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
The DMDK MLAs are C Arun Pandian, M Arun Subramanian, K Pandiarajan, K Tamil Azhagan, S Michael Rayappan, R Sundarrajan, T Suresh Kumar and R Santhi. The two others are Kalai Arasu (PMK) and A Ramasamy (Puthiya Tamizhagam).
DMDK chief Vijayakanth had on Sunday lost his Opposition Leader status since the strength of his party in the Assembly reduced to 20 from 28 after the resignation of the eight MLAs.
While all the 10 were opposition MLAs, they had in the last few years shifted their allegiance towards AIADMK.
The MLAs had tendered their resignations a day after the last session of the 14th Assembly ended. Polls are scheduled in Tamil Nadu in about two months.
