Election defeat forces DMK to change its office bearers

General Secy Anbazhagan reasoned that the changes were being made to ensure the party affairs were `prompt` in the respective units and urged the local functionaries to extend their cooperation to the new office-bearers.

Chennai: Continuing with its post-poll shake-up of office-bearers, DMK on Tuesday "relieved" former Nagapattinam MP A K S Vijayan from the party's key District Secretary post.

"Vijayan, was being 'relieved' as District Secretary of Nagapattinam South", DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan announced in a statement.

He was being replaced with N Gauthaman.

"Further, the District Secretaries of Nagapattinam North and Tuticorin North, P Kalyanam and K Rajaram, respectively, were also being relieved", Anbazhagan said.

They were being replaced by Niveda M Murugan and A Subramanian, respectively.

Anbazhagan reasoned that the changes were being made to ensure the party affairs were "prompt" in the respective units and urged the local functionaries to extend their cooperation to the new office-bearers.

DMK had lost the May 16 Assembly polls to arch rival AIADMK but has a strength of 89 MLAs, up from the 23 in 2011 and is the main opposition party.

The party had earlier made a similar rejig, changing some district secretaries.