All eyes are on the scheduled meeting of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (AIADMK) executive on September 28 to see how the party is going to resolve the current round of power struggle between camps led by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.
While Mr. Palaniswami’s supporters want him to be projected as the chief ministerial candidate for the coming Assembly polls, the other group is of the view that preference should be given to organisational matters with equal representation to members of the Panneerselvam camp.
These positions were articulated by members of the camp — Electricity Minister and Namakkal strongman of the party P. Thangamani of the Palaniswami group, and former MLAs and organisation secretaries J.C.D. Prabhakar and P.H. Manoj Pandian of the Panneerselvam group — at a meeting of senior functionaries at the party headquarters on Friday last.
Mr. Panneerselvam himself reiterated his demand that an 11-member steering committee be formed at the earliest as this was one of the points of convergence between the two camps at the time of merger three years ago. However, Mr .Palaniswami did not concur with him as the idea, according to him, would not be workable.
Sasikala’s jail term may end on January 27, 2021
The power tussle is acquiring a different dimension with the possible return of the party’s former interim general secretary, V.K. Sasikala, to Tamil Nadu in the near future. Efforts are on to get her freed ahead of the probable date of release from a Bengaluru jail — January 27, 2021.
An office bearer of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) says that the Palaniswami camp wants to settle the chief ministerial candidate issue before Sasikala comes out of prison, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Panneerselvam quit as CM in February 2017 so that she could succeed him. AMMK general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran’s visit to New Delhi on Sunday was said to have been made to explore legal options to obtain Sasikala’s early release, the office bearer explained. He added that there were chances of his party getting closer to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is being perceived in certain quarters as one keen on bringing the AIADMK and the AMMK under one umbrella, as it did in the case of the Palaniswami and Panneerselvam factions in August-September 2017.
Regardless of the outcome of the efforts concerning Sasikala, several office bearers of the ruling party, belonging to both camps feel that disunity between the two leaders would only be internecine at this point of time, when the Assembly elections are seven or eight months away. While not being oblivious to the drubbing received at the hands of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its allies in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, they also recall that the overall margin of victory between their party and the DMK-led combine in the 2016 Assembly polls, even when the late Jayalalithaa was at the helm of affairs, was around one percentage point. In several constituencies, the difference in terms of votes was in three digit figures.
On the Sasikala factor, a senior Minister says that instead of trying to be in denial mode, the party should have an action plan ready to tackle its likely impact.
A few other functionaries said that it was not an impossible task for Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam to thrash out their differences even now and present a united face. In that case, the executive’s meeting next week may turn out to be a tame affair.
