For the people in his camp in the AIADMK, he is the only man who fought to save AIADMK from Sasikala’s family and to get justice for Jayalalithaa. O. Panneerselvam is now Tamil Nadu’s Deputy Chief Minister. He is the saviour of the party along with his counterpart and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy. Panneerselvam’s rebellion and his 40-minute meditation at the beachside grave of his mentor J. Jayalaithaa on February 8, set the ball rolling to get the party rid of one single family.
Months later, Sasikala’s family was shown the door and Sasikala is not at the helm of affairs. Her nephew TTV Dhinakaran is an independent MLA. But now, AIADMK seems to be muddling in family politics again. This time it is not the Sasikala family. The sons of senior leaders like OPS, fisheries minister D. Jayakumar, B. Valarmathi and late K.A. Krishnasamy have triggered a fresh round of debates within the party, which still haven’t overcome the twinges post the merger of the OPS-EPS camps.
The 37-year-old P. Ravindranath Kumar, son of deputy chief minister and party coordinator O. Panneerselvam, has been elevated as the secretary of the Theni district unit of the Puratchi Thalaivi Amma Peravai, one of the wings of the party. It may be recalled that Ravindranath Kumar along with his uncle and OPS’s younger brother O. Raja was removed from their party posts and kept in abeyance by Jayalalithaa. Along with him in the Peravai, K.A.K. Mukil, son of AIADMK leader K.A. Krishnasamy, who died eight years ago and J. Jayavardhan, son of fisheries minister and party’s organising secretary D. Jayakumar have been appointed as the joint secretaries. And then it is C.B. Moovendhan, son of former minister B. Valarmathi appointed as the deputy secretary of the party. With these sons also is N. Sadan Prabhakar, son of former MP and Dalit leader from Kamuthi in Ramanathapuram district, S. Niraikulathan who has also been appointed for the prime position in the Peravai.
OPS while delivering an emotional speech at one of the MGR centenary celebration event in Theni, after the merger, said, “the party and government should not be controlled by one family. This is not just about Sasikala family, but also about the families like that of OPS and K.P. Munusamy or anyone in the party,” said OPS. While there is no amiss about the appointments, the postings to a select few in the Peravai have created a buzz within the party. Sources say, the appointments are a preamble for some of these prominent faces to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The buzz is that OPS’s son, P. Ravindranath Kumar is eyeing for a ticket from the southern districts to the Lok Sabha polls and Jayavardhan, who is already a Lok sabha MP, will retain it.
But the postings and the appointment of the sons of the leaders have stirred a controversy, making many of the senior members point fingers at OPS and EPS for not still constituting the steering committee. Apparently, on the day of merger on August 22, OPS was appointed the Coordinator, EPS as the Joint Coordinator, along with K.P. Munusamy and former minister R. Vaithilingam. But apart from these four, no member has been appointed to the 15-member steering committee. While senior leaders like V. Maithreayan, Raja Kannappan, Natham Viswanathan, Manoj Pandian and Semmalai were the probable names to the coordination committee from OPS camp, ministers like P. Velumani, P. Thangamani, Valarmathi and three others were the names from the EPS camp. Reportedly, it was decided that five from OPS camp and six from EPS camp will be nominated to the steering committee. The steering committee was meant to be the nerve, like the polit bureau in the communist party, which will make the major policy decisions in the party.
With the steering committee still hanging in balance, the new appointments have left the second rung leaders in the erstwhile OPS camp high and dry. “We all were with him during the Dharma Yudh. But they have left us in the lurch,” says a senior leader who has been sidelined now.
The recent appointments have also raised another question on the membership drive which has been extended for 90 more days. Apparently, the membership drive which began three month before under EPS and OPS and which was supposed to end on May 31 has been extended further as there weren’t many new comers as expected. Sources say that there were only a few lakh new comers while as many as 3000 were sacked from the party by EPS and OPS for anti-party activities.