The General Council meeting of the 50-year-old AIADMK scheduled for 09.30 on Monday is going to be a “touch and go” game as the Madras High Court would pronounce its verdict about the legality of the meeting at 09.15 hrs. The court verdict is in response to a petition filed by party coordinator O Panneerselvam challenging the constitutionality of such a meeting. If the verdict is in favour of the GC meeting, the Edappadi Palaniswami faction which has convened it would go ahead with it and declare the dual leadership null and void. The meeting would also elect Edappadi Palaniswami as the interim general secretary.
The tussle for the control of the party between Palaniswami, Panneerselvam and V K Sasikala has reached a crucial level and the results would be known by Monday evening. According to sources in the AIADMK, all senior leaders have dumped Panneerselvam and rallied behind Palaniswamy which has made the former to seek the help of Sasikala.
Sasikala, who is on a State-wide tour to wrest the party is a picture of contradiction pointed out Kolahala Srenivaas, AIADMK watcher and author. “Sasikala had made it known twice that she was not interested in politics and retiring from active politics. But she moves around claiming that she is the general secretary of the party despite the General Council easing her out by abolishing the post in September 2017,” said Srenivaas.
Panneerselvam and Palaniswami were appointed coordinator and co-coordinator respectively in an effort to work out a truce in September 2017 . But the dual leadership did not yield the result the AIADMK had expected. The party fared poorly in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and managed to win just one out of the 38 seats from the State. The 2021 assembly election too saw the AIADMK losing the battle as the DMK returned to power. Since then, it was DMK all the way as the party won election to the local bodies with brutal majority.
The sidelining of Panneerselvam that began after the assembly election reached the peak as the latter started singing peans to the DMK and M K Stalin. Panneerselvam also cozied up to Sasikala in a bid to wrest the party from Palaniswami. But many senior leaders in the party deserted Panneerselavam. “Had he been honest about his respect for Amma (Jayalalithaa) he would not have appreciated Stalin or the DMK. The byelaws of the AIADMK state that no members of the party should approach the Court against the party. Panneerselvam is filing petitions after petitions and violating party guidelines,” said a source close to Palaniswami.
K P Munusami, deputy coordinator and a close associate of Panneerselvam dumped him and joined the Palaniswami camp on June 23, when the General Council met. “Having become the Chief minister for a couple of times thanks to Jayalalithaa’s munificence, should Panneerselvam not have been far more virulent in opposing the DMK after her demise?” asked Munusami while speaking to the media. It may be noted that all the former ministers in the previous AIADMK Government who have been raided by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department belong to the Palaniswami camp which is being seen as a deal between Chief Minister Stalin and Panneerselvam.
Panneerselvam’s grouse is that the BJP leadership was not helping him like they were doing in the past. As on date, the only option before him is to join the Sasikala camp and try to seize the party apparatus from Palaniswami. But the question that remains to be answered is whether Sasikala, who does not have an office to work from and facing series of cases filed by the ED and Income Tax Department has the support of the cadres? “Sasikala is not Jayalalithaa and that is the answer,” said Srenivaas.