Even as the Congress-led Opposition alliance announced the name of Meira Kumar as the Presidential candidate, the AIADMK faction headed by former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam (which has 12 MPs and an equal number of MlAs at its command) declared that they would extend their support to Ramnath Kovind, the BJP candidate.
Speaking to reporters at Chennai on Thursday, Panneerselvam said the decision to support Kovind was arrived at after interacting with all office bearers of the party, including the district and block level party managers. “BJP president Amit Shah called us and asked for our support to Kovind. On Thursday we informed Shah that we would support Kovind in the Presidential election. Amit Shah rang us up and thanked for the support,” said Panneerselvam.
The other faction headed by Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy had announced on Wednesdaythat his faction would support Kovind. The decision was taken in a meeting of the MlAs, MPs, and other office bearers of the faction convened by Palaniswamy and held at AIADMK headquarters.
But the course of action to be taken by the faction headed by TTV Dinakaran is yet to be known. Out of the 122 MlAs, who had supported Palaniswamy during the confidence vote in February last, 34 MlAs have switched over to the Dinakaran faction. Dinakaran and other leading lights of the faction had declared that the jailed general secretary of the AIADMK
VK Sasikala would take a call on whom to support in the Presidential election. The Jaya TV, party mouthpiece controlled by the Sasikala family has not telecasted the decision of Palaniswamy to support the BJP candidate.
The undivided AIADMK with 37 members in the lok Sabha is the third largest party in the House. It has 13 members in the Rajya Sabha making it the fourth largest segment in the upper house. But with the passing away of J Jayalalithaa in December last, the AIADMK is on a process of disintegration with three factions fighting it out against each other for political supremacy.