Tamil Nadu: As EPS gains support, AIADMK mouthpiece cuts out mutinying OPS

Panneerselvam, however, is fighting a legal battle to keep the dual leadership.

Panneerselvam had put all the efforts into keeping the general council meeting from deciding on the single-leadership issue.

A small victory came for him when the division bench of the Madras High Court directed the general council meeting not to decide on a single leader during the meeting.

However, Panneerselvam staged a walkout as the general council meeting rejected all the 23 resolutions. The party schedules the next such meeting for 11 July.

Battle of 2 ex-CMs

Senior party leaders and former government officials told South First on condition of anonymity that Palaniswami had gained the upper hand even before the recent tussle.

A senior AIADMK leader explained that in 2017, when the party faced huge internal disagreements following the death of Jayalalithaa, it was Palaniswami who won the trust vote and led the government.

“Palaniswami handled the situation very well in 2017 when the party split entirely,” he said, adding that EPS’ loyalists — some of them ministers — have helped him rejuvenate the party.

“Palaniswami has mastered politics more than his opponent. He was so successful during his early days. He had done a lot of party work in Salem. He held the most extensive support in the ‘Kongu’ region, which made Amma (Jayalalithaa) give him the post of party headquarters secretary,” said a former senior leader of the party, who opposed the entry of Sasikala into the AIADMK.

Palaniswami’s decision-making skills are also why he emerged as a fully skilled leader as per the former leaders.

They also cited his foreign trip in 2019 to attract investors to Tamil Nadu as a significant achievement.

Palaniswami took his delegates to the Emirates, the United States, and the United Kingdom as part of the trip. He signed MoUs for investments worth ₹8,830 crore throughout the trip.

A district health officer who worked at Covid-19 war rooms in Coimbatore, Salem, Namakkal, and Karur told South First that Palaniswami, as then chief minister, handled the pandemic efficiently.

“Even though we were under pressure monitoring Covid-19 activities when the beds were running low, Palaniswami was always available to us and listened to us, and was always ready to provide us any assistance that made us work without a stress,” he said.

However, Palaniswami has also come in for criticism from party leaders for his alliance with the BJP in the 2021 Assembly election.

However, the public anger over that didn’t last long. The AIADMK, under Palaniswami, lost to the DMK with a 3% difference in a vote. Senior party leaders call this a victory.

They told South First that the gap would have been larger if Panneerselvam was in charge.

Asked why OPS wouldn’t be able to get the upper hand inside the party, the senior leaders said supporters and the public had lost trust in him as he only thinks about his benefits.

A senior leader told South First about OPS: “He hardly accepts to sign on the party’s internal and external affairs, which damaged the accountability of the party itself.”

The trust people had in OPS seems to have eroded. His supporters switched to EPS.