The AIADMK on Tuesday made two major organisational changes — abolition of the panchayat-level secretaries and wholesale removal of all office-bearers of the Information Technology wing.
This was announced in separate press releases issued jointly by Edappadi K. Palaniswami and O. Panneerselvam, Chief Minister-cum-co-coordinator, and Deputy Chief Minister-cum-coordinator, of the party.
Though the releases did not give any reason, sources in the party say the two actions had been “under consideration” of the party leadership for “quite sometime.” It was not for the first time that “drastic action” concerning the IT wing was taken. In September 2016, immediately before Jayalalithaa fell ill, she had, in two rounds, expelled 14 members of the wing including, six functionaries from the party.
The party has a secretary for each of 12,525 village panchayats in the State. One of the releases said the panchayat-level secretaries would be given “alternative positions shortly.” The sources say the complaint against them was that they were “blocking branch secretaries from providing candid feedback” about the ground situation to union secretaries. Hereafter, the district unit would have office-bearers only at three levels — district, union and branch. A senior leader from the central region of the State said this action was contemplated even by Jayalalithaa. But, the present leadership, which was pre-occupied with several other issues in the last three years, waited for an “opportune moment.”
As for the IT wing of the party, all the State-level office-bearers had been relieved of their positions. Instead, zonal secretaries were appointed to look after four zones — Chennai, Vellore, Coimbatore and Madurai. ‘Aspire’ K. Swaminathan, who was State secretary of the IT wing till March 2016, had been given charge of the Chennai zone; M. Kovai Sathyan, spokesperson, of Vellore; Singai G. Ramachandran, also former State secretary of the IT wing of Coimbatore, and V.V.R. Raj Sathyan, the party’s nominee for Madurai in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, of Madurai. Each zone had been allotted at least 10 district units. The Madurai zone would cover 18 district units; Coimbatore – 16, Vellore – 12 and Chennai – 10. The sources say that there was a perception in the party that “differences” between two groups in the IT wing came in the way of the wing functioning as a “vibrant unit.” This was why the leadership had come to the conclusion of disbanding with the mechanism of State-level functionaries for the wing.
