Even as the Madras High Court is set to hear and pronounce its verdicts in three politically sensitive cases which would determine the fate of the Edappadi Palaniswamy led AIADMK Government in Tamil Nadu, talks of a mid-term election to the Assembly have started reverberating across the State.
But what makes the present ruling dispensation in Fort Saint George (Tamil Nadu’s Secretariat) is the inherent weakness associated with it. Since the day former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospital in Chennai in an unconscious state on September 22, 2016, talks of an imminent collapse of the Government have been going around.
It has reached a crescendo by the time VK Sasikala, the disposed general secretary of the party made her visit to Chennai on parole for five days to be with her ailing husband M Natarajan during the second week of October. The latest information is that Sasikala has given Palaniswamy three months to mend his way and fall in line. “It is our way or highway for Palaniswamy,” Sasikala is reported to have told her trusted aides in the party with whom she interacted before her return to the Parappana Agrahara Prison in Bangalore.
The message is loud and clear. Palaniswamy has to vacate his chair and accommodate TTV Dinakaran, Sasikala’s nephew. Though Palaniswamy and his deputy O Panneerselvam has buried the hatchet and has come together against the common foe, that is Sasikala and her family, it is an open secret that all is not well with the merged faction. Panneerselvam’s recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi is a pointer in this direction. Discontent is brewing up among the followers of Panneerselvam due to the continued side-lining of them by Palaniswamy on matters of Governance and party affairs.
Following the visit made by Sasikala and the ultimatum issued by her to Palaniswamy, the OPS-EPS faction unleashed an attack on the Sasikala clan by releasing an epistle on the foundation day of the party which was observed on Tuesday. In a joint-statement released by the duo, it was alleged that the Sasikala clan was having surreptitious business deals with the family of Amma’s enemy (read Karunanidhi) and this has pained the soul of the Puratichi Thalaivi (as Jayalalithaa was addressed by the cadre). “We are well aware of their deceitful drama to destabilise the Government by forging political relationship with those whom they had surreptitious business relationships. Fortunately Amma had forewarned against them on several occasions,” said the statement.
It also alleged that the Sasikala family had attempted to unseat the Government by creating contacts with political rivals who had caused mental agony and physical illness to Amma by foisting false cases against her. Though talks about business deals between the Sasikala clan and Karunanidhi family had been going around the air for quite some time, this is the first official disclosure by the followers of Jayalalithaa.
The Sasikala/Dinakaran faction could not observe the Foundation Day as the AIADMK party headquarters in Chennai has been declared a no-go area for them. Since Dinkaran was eased out of the party position by the Palaniwamy faction immediately after the rescinding of the R K Nagar by-poll in April 2017, no leaders from his faction had dared to enter the party headquarters.
The picture would be clear only after the Madras High Court pronounces its verdicts on petitions filed by the disqualified AIADMK MlAs challenging their ouster from the House, the 21 DMK MlAs who has challenged the move to disqualify them by the Privilege Committee on charges of displaying banned gutkha packets and another petition by the DMK questioning why Panneerselvam and 10 MlAs who voted against the Palaniswamy Government in the 2017 February Trust Vote were not disqualified in spite of violating party whip.