All is not well within the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. On Thursday, a day after the monsoon session of the Assembly got over, Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam had called for an emergency meeting. The usual statement—which comes out with the signatures of both Panneerselvam, who is AIADMK party coordinator, and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS), who is joint coordinator—had just the signature of the coordinator.
And on Friday as the two reached the party office at Avvai Shanmugam Salai in Chennai, slogans calling Panneerselvam as the “future chief minister of Tamil Nadu” and Palaniswami as “the permanent chief minister” began emerging. Panneerselvam and Palaniswami were accorded separate welcomes by the party cadres, indicating that both are different power centres in the party. The emergency meeting—which had party seniors, MPs and MLAs—saw hectic parleys, heated arguments, debates and discussions. But it finally ended inconclusively, as both Panneerselvam and Palaniswami did not want to break the temporary truce reached on August 15. “The executive committee will meet on September 28 at 9.45am,” said a statement released by the party after the meeting, indicating that the growing difference between the two leaders can be a closely guarded secret.
Highly placed sources in the party say that, as soon as the meeting began, a supporter of Panneerselvam raised his voice, asking why the steering committee was not constituted yet. The two camps, during their ‘merger’ in 2017, had agreed to constitute a 11-member steering committee. Incidentally, Palaniswami, according to sources, had come prepared to take on the Panneerselvam camp. While Panneerselvam supporters like J.C.D. Prabhakar and Manoj Pandian were vociferous during the three-hour-long meeting, sources said senior leaders K.P. Munusamy and R. Vaithilingam, the two deputy coordinators of the party, tried to appease the situation. On the other side, one of the ministers from the northern districts pointed out that the party is being dominated by one particular community from West Tamil Nadu.
Later as Palaniswami issued a note of caution, saying that the difference of opinion might widen the existing rift, Panneerselvam is said to have called for a temporary truce. The emergency meeting, however, came to a close, as Panneerselvam, sources say, said that a decision will be taken in the executive committee meeting scheduled on September 28.
This is the second meeting of the ruling AIADMK in the last few months to have ended inconclusively in deciding who is powerful in the party: Panneerselvam or Palaniswami. On August 15, soon after the Independence Day celebrations at the state secretariat, ministers had to run between residences of Panneerselvam and Palaniswami on Greenways Road, holding hectic parleys.
