E-Paper
Madras high court reserves order on OPS plea against AIADMK general council meeting on July 11
A single bench of justice Krishnan Ramaswamy said the high court will pass an order at 9 am on July 11 – the day of the key AIADMK meeting.
The Madras high court on Friday reserved its order on former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam’s (OPS) plea to stall the July 11 AIADMK general council meeting that aims to elect his rival camp leader Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) as the party interim general secretary.
A single bench of justice Krishnan Ramaswamy said the high court will pass an order at 9 am on July 11 – the day of the key AIADMK meeting.
The July 11 meeting has 16 agendas to be passed by the general council, which include choosing EPS as the party interim general secretary and discussing the procedure to elect him as general secretary.
The path to abolish the dual leadership of OPS as coordinator and EPS as joint coordinator and make the latter AIADMK’s unitary leader started in June.
A sidelined OPS has been opposing this on various forums trying to protect his political position and the two leaders are now fighting it out in court. EPS had challenged a previous Madras HC order that favoured OPS a few hours ahead of the previous general council meeting held on June 23 in the Supreme Court which on Wednesday stayed the high court order.
On Friday, EPS’s counsel argued that the Supreme Court has already allowed them to conduct the July 11 general council meeting and that one man (OPS) is stifling a democratic process.
OPS’s counsel argued that the EPS camp’s argument that the posts of coordinator and joint coordinator – which came into place in 2017 and was solidified by amending party by laws for primary members to elect them in December 2021 – has ceased to exist is fallacious.
EPS supporters and senior AIADMK leaders say since the June 23 general council meeting rejected all 26 resolutions which included ratifying the December 2021 election, the posts are now defunct.
Former minister and EPS supporter D Jayakumar told reporters that they were confident that the verdict would be in their favour. “I’m 100% confident that we will get a good verdict. So as usual, invites for the meeting have been sent to everyone. Our functionaries will come to Chennai to attend the meeting,” Jayakumar said.
The OPS side maintains that the coordinator and joint coordinator elected in December 2021 should complete its five-year tenure as per the party’s by-laws.
Meanwhile, the party’s ousted interim general secretary VK Sasikala, who once again became politically active after the slugfest between EPS and OPS and is on a political tour across the state, on Friday told reporters in Villupuram that the current leaders were the ones causing confusion in the AIADMK.
“The top leaders are fighting with each other. But the workers are clear,” Sasikala said. A day ago, she asserted that she was the AIADMK general secretary.
