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Sympathy wave for OPS, say supporters amid row
“People who are calling and visiting OPS have increased ten fold after the AIADMK’s June 23 general council meeting,” said one of the senior leaders who is on OPS’ side.
The O Panneerselvam (OPS) camp says that the way the AIADMK leader has been treated by Edappadi Palaniswami and his supporters has resulted in a sympathy wave for OPS. “People who are calling and visiting OPS have increased ten fold after the June 23 general council meeting,” said one of the senior leaders who is on OPS’ side.
On Tuesday, team OPS moved the Madras high court seeking contempt of court proceedings against the AIADMK office-bearers who attended the council meeting, veteran leader JCD Prabhakar who belongs to the OPS camp told HT. The petition challenges the discussion of EPS as the unitary leader during the election of presidium chairman Tamilmagan Hussain and calling for a fresh general council meeting on July 11 – all of which had happened on the June 23 meet.
OPS on Monday informed the Election Commission of India on the recent developments in the AIADMK. OPS is pulling all stops against his own party which has isolated him as a majority want to scrap the dual leadership of OPS as coordinator and EPS as joint coordinator and return to a single leadership under the latter. EPS as former chief minister from 2017 to 2021 has more support backed by the general council, senior leaders and even former supporters of OPS who have now jumped ship.
In this scenario, OPS was armed with a post midnight judicial order that did not allow the June 23 meeting to amend a bylaw that would make EPS the unitary leader. And yet the meeting which started a few hours later raised slogans against OPS, threw a plastic bottle in his direction and demanded that EPS be made their leader. One of his supporters, Rajya Sabha MP C V Shanmugam, submitted a dossier with 2190 signatures out of the 2500 members of the general council demanding a single leadership. On the following day, Shanmugam announced that the dual leadership ceased to exist as the June 23 meeting had not ratified a party bylaw which was amended in December 2021 which allowed the election of OPS and EPS as coordinator and joint coordinator by a single vote. This is also precisely the point against which team OPS is rallying.
“After both were elected only in December, how can one of them simply say the other has to go? This has angered the cadre even in EPS’ stronghold in Kongu (western region of Tamil Nadu) who are now calling OPS to say that they do not like how EPS is not condemning the humiliating behaviour against OPS,” said the leader quoted above. On Monday, EPS called for a meeting in the AIADMK’s Chennai headquarters which OPS and his supporters did not attend. Cadre also tore down OPS image from party posters.
On the night of the June 23 meeting, OPS left for Delhi and met NDA’s presidential nominee Droupadui Murmu. Following the meeting he said that on behalf of the AIADMK he had assured her of their full support. On his return, OPS received a rousing welcome in Madurai from where he went to his native district Theni – both his strongholds in the southern region.
The caste divisions are also wide open in the AIADMK where the western region is dominated by EPS’ Gounder caste and the southern region supports OPS and V K Sasikala’s Thevar community. “The support for OPS has grown organically. When people saw a bottle being thrown at him, his poster being torn, his community from various districts have organically hit the ground to consolidate,” said an OPS supporter.
Amidst the power struggle in the AIADMK, Sasikala also went on a roadshow on the same day as OPS. Both of them told their supporters that cadres were on their side. After EPS and OPS joined hands in 2017, they had ousted Sasikala and TTV Dhinakaran and the latter went on to float a breakaway faction -- Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam. Now the times have changed so OPS, Sasikala and Dhinakaran’s common nemesis is EPS. But team OPS says that Sasikala’s camp has not contacted them.
While OPS wants the dual leadership to continue, Sasikala and Dhinakaran want to reclaim the reins of the AIADMK. EPS has grown so powerful within and outside the party that the majority wants to coronate him on the July 11 meeting and do away with the confusions, and focus on being an effective opposition against the DMK, his supporters say.
