A Supreme Court order on February 23 endorsing that the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) general council of July 11, 2022, was valid effectively gave the control of the party to former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS). The verdict was delivered a day before the birth anniversary of former Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa.
The order comes just a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the former EPS faction of the AIADMK should be granted the ‘two leaves’ symbol for the February 27 Erode byelections. In effect, the court dismissed the rival O. Panneerselvam faction’s petition and confirmed EPS as AIADMK’s interim general secretary.
AIADMK cadres celebrated in the Chennai headquarters of the party and elsewhere in the State. In Erode, where the byelection is being held, former Minister and AIADMK leader K.A. Sengottaiyan distributed sweets to people and party members. The order has given a fillip to the AIADMK campaign in Erode.
“I did not sleep last night,” EPS told presspersons after the verdict. “I prayed to [party founder] MGR [Ramachandran] and Jayalalithaa…. Amma [Jayalalithaa] had stated that the AIADMK will continue for over a 100 years after her [death],” he added, his voice filled with emotion.
The show is not over, though. Dismissing the appeals and affirming the judgment of the Division Bench of the Madras High Court [of September 2, 2022], Justice Dinesh Maheshwari noted: “We make it clear that none of the observations passed in these matters shall have any bearing on the pending civil suits relating to these appeals and the said suits shall be proceeded with on their merits.”
Leadership tussle in AIADMK
The leadership tussle in the AIADMK began soon after Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016. The AIADMK was in power in Tamil Nadu at that time and O. Panneerselvam (also known as OPS) was Chief Minister. Jayalalithaa’s close aide, Sasikala, who was asked by senior Ministers and party members to take over the party, was set to become Chief Minister.
In fact, in early February 2017, the AIADMK Legislature Party elected her as its leader. That the Governor of the State remained unreachable after this event made it amply clear that the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre was not an innocent bystander in the AIADMK drama. By mid-February, Sasikala, who had been convicted in the disproportionate assets case, was in jail, and her relative, T.T.V. Dhinakaran, took over as the leader. Before heading to jail, Sasikala anointed EPS as Chief Minister.
Dhinakaran sought to bring the party together, and wanted to be Chief Minister. He filed his nomination from R.K. Nagar, the constituency that Jayalalithaa held. But the April 2017 election was postponed because the Election Commission of India felt that a free and fair election could not be held because of massive bribing of voters.
By the time the byelection was held again, towards the end of 2017, too many things had changed: Dhinakaran was arrested and held in Tihar Jail in a strange case of trying to bribe Election Commission officials to regain the AIADMK’s ‘two leaves’ symbol (but there was no bribe-taker named); EPS had established himself as Chief Minister with a mixture of patronage and plainspeak; and OPS, who had rebelled against the Sasikala leadership, was back with EPS and anointed Deputy Chief Minister. (OPS later said that he agreed to take up the job because Prime Minister Narendra Modi had advised him to do so).
In yet another strange decision, this time by the Election Commission of India, EPS and OPS were required to sign for a candidate to be allotted the party’s ‘two leaves’ symbol. The meeting on July 11, 2022, annulled this by making EPS the sole leader of the party. OPS, the party coordinator in the earlier set-up, contested this with both the Election Commission and the courts. Right now, there are multiple issues being contested by OPS and EPS in multiple fora, all of which are related to one aspect or the other of the AIADMK’s functioning.
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