E-Paper
O Panneerselvam a ‘betrayer’: AIADMK's Palaniswami amid EPS feud
Amid speculation that a meeting was called on Monday to remove OPS from the post as party treasurer, he said: “The answers to all questions will be known at the next general council meeting of the party.”
An AIADMK camp led by Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) on Monday described O Panneerselvam (OPS), who is leading another camp, as a “symbol of betrayal” and said future of OPS will be decided in the next party general council meeting on July 11.
“Consistently, annan (brother) OPS has shown that he is a symbol of betrayal from the very beginning,” said D Jayakumar, AIADMK spokesperson and former minister.
Amid speculation that a meeting was called on Monday to remove OPS from the post as party treasurer, he said: “The answers to all questions will be known at the next general council meeting of the party.”
The statement announcing the meeting came late on Sunday night from the party headquarters secretary without naming EPS though it is his post. OPS shot off a letter describing the meeting as illegal as he has not signed on the statement.
This is the latest in a series of back and forth between the two camps where a majority of the AIADMK wants to move away from the dual leadership of OPS as coordinator and EPS as joint coordinator and revert to a single leadership under the latter.
The plan to coronate EPS as the single leader at the June 23 general council meeting suffered a setback after OPS had gone to the Madras high court and obtained a verdict in his favour in a post-midnight order just a few hours before the meeting.
But the meeting was clearly not in OPS’ favour as the members raised slogans for EPS to be their leader. The meeting did not pass any resolutions, announced that 2,190 out of 2,500 members of the general council signed a document for the AIADMK to internally elect EPS as their supremo and called for a fresh general council meeting on July 1.
If the numbers are to go by as claimed by the EPS camp, the party is clearly throwing their weight behind him. Jayakumar on Monday said out of 74 members, 65 had turned up for the Monday meeting and four people had informed that they are sick.
Team OPS – a handful of supporters led by veteran JCD Prabhakar, deputy coordinator R Vaithilingam and MLA Manoj Pandian– says they have no clue what had transpired to reach this tipping point and still ready for “peaceful talks” while team EPS – a majority of the party leaders and functionaries – is steadfast that there will be no truce this time.
EPS took stock of the situation on Monday, just a day after his nemesis VK Sasikala and OPS held independent road shows to show their strength and they both claimed that AIADMK’s cadre were on their side. Leaders were tight-lipped about what transpired inside the meeting but outside, EPS’ supporters once again sought to humiliate OPS by tearing down his face from the party poster.
A senior leader, however, said the meeting led by newly elected presidium chairman Tamilmagam Hussain was to discuss the agenda for the July 11 meeting. “We office bearers had asked for today’s meeting so it was held,” the senior leader said without elaborating further.
On OPS’ allegation that the meeting was not legal according to the party’s constitution, the leader recalled that MP CV Shanmugham had already clarified on Friday the posts of coordinator and joint coordinator have become defunct and OPS and EPS were only retaining their party posts as treasurer and headquarters secretary.
