AIADMK to choose LoP today as party looks to chart future course

Chennai: The AIADMK, which lost after 10 years of being in power, will on Friday choose an important position for the leader of opposition in Tamil Nadu’s new legislative assembly where the DMK will form the government

Chennai: The AIADMK, which lost after 10 years of being in power, will on Friday choose an important position for the leader of opposition in Tamil Nadu’s new legislative assembly where the DMK will form the government.

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When AIADMK meets Friday at its party headquarters in Chennai they will arrive at a consensus on whether it would be outgoing chief minister and party coordinator Edappadi Palaniswami or outgoing deputy chief minister O Paneerselvam. Party functionaries said that Pannerselvam’s supporters have pitched for him but the position is likely to go to Palaniswami. “He was our chief minister candidate. Since our party lost the election, it is only morally right for him to be the opposition leader,” said a former minister not wishing to be named.

A veteran leader in the party who was a supporter of Pannerselvam said that they will have to stay united to face the next election, which will be the local body polls, and to keep the family of VK Sasikala and TTV Dhinakaran at bay. “It is natural for a section to want Panneerselvam to be the opposition leader but if we continue the status quo of dual leadership where Palaniswami after being chief minister is the opposition leader and Panneerselvam continues to be the leader of the party, no problems will arise.”

Another factor is that the party registered its highest number of wins from the western region or Kongu region from where Palaniswami and his top cabinet ministers hail. While the DMK swept Chennai and regions of south, centre and north, it hasn’t been able to breach the western belt which is traditionally the AIADMK’s bastion and Palaniswami was able to retain it with a combination of his work and caste-factor.

The western region has 33 MLAs in the AIADMK-led alliance out of 50 seats whereas the south from where Pannerselvam hails has 18 MLAs in the AIADMK-led alliance in 58 seats. Also, Palaniswami increased his margin of win by defeating DMK’s candidate by 92,849 votes in Edappadi constituency in Salem district while Panneerselvam whale trailing in a few rounds before securing a win with 12,154 votes in Bodinayakanur in Theni district. “Palaniswami clearly has the upper-hand,” says political commentator Durai Karunanidhi. “Though they have led a successful dual leadership, Palaniswami strengthened himself and his support base while Pannerselvam wasn’t able to do much for his followers by way of a post so even his supporters have moved away.”

In such a scenario, questions remain on how Pannerselvam will handle the situation having been hand-picked by Jayalalithaa twice to fill in as interim chief minister while she was imprisoned and hospitalised. As the finance minister he has presented 10 state budgets. Will he fight it out to be opposition leader or will he move back to Sasikala? “He gave away the CM post so he may as well let this be. The possibilities of Panneerselvam joining Sasikala or her trying to regain control of the party is low,” says Karunanidhi. “But nobody knows what runs in Pannerselvam’s mind. He’s like a silent bomb.”

During the campaign, Pannerselvam had in a television interview made a U-turn on the party policy that categorically rejected Sasikala and Dhinakaran-led AMMK and said that if Sasikala accepted the present dual leadership her return could be examined. He was quickly told not to make such statements as the party had hitherto successfully prevented an exodus towards her after her release from prison in February 2021.

During campaign, Pannerselvam also attempted to damage control a counter caste-polarisation that arose to his disadvantage after Palaniswami passed a legislation in the assembly an hour before the model code of conduct came into effect providing 10.5% internet reservation to the Vanniyar community to appease their ally, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK).

The issue is a fallout of the caste churning within the AIADMK which when Sasikala operated behind the scenes during J Jayalalithaa’s period was dominated by the Mukkulathor community. “AIADMK began to have caste politics within the party only after Sasikala’s domination,” says Karunanidhi.

The two AIADMK leaders quoted above were confident that their functionaries will not move to the Sasikala camp even as it is being keenly watched if disgruntled ministers and MLAs who lost would shift loyalties.

Unlike DMK, which had an undisputed change of guard after deaths of party founder CN Annadurai in 1969 and M Karunanidhi in 2018 with M K Stalin to be sworn in as chief minister Friday morning, the AIADMK has been riddled with succession battles but re-invented itself. Soon after MGR’s death, the battle to take control over the party began between Jayalalithaa and his wife Janaki. The latter after becoming the first woman chief minister and losing the post quit from politics. After Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016, Sasikala briefly held the reigns of the party before being imprisoned and a series of backstabbing and loyalty wars later, Palaniswami and Pannerselvam have jointly kept the party together.