After a brief lull the ongoing political battle among AIADMK leadership sans Jayalalithaa is going to heat up as Madras High Court pronounces the verdict in the petition filed by the 18 AIADMK MLAs against the Speaker’s order to disqualify them under the anti-defection provisions.
“The Edappadi K. Palaniswami-led AIADMK government will be wiped out from office once the Madras High Court declares its judgment in this case. The government will fall and Tamil Nadu will see an election to the Assembly soon,” said M K Stalin, Opposition Leader and working president of the DMK on Friday.
Meanwhile TTV Dinakaran, the sidelined nephew of V K Sasikala has scored a point on Friday with a senior leader from Tamil Manila Congress shifting his loyalty to him and the number of local leaders expelled from AIADMK by ruling faction increasing to more than 5000.
The DMK is also getting ready to face any eventualities including a snap election to the Assembly as Stalin is holding daily meetings with district-level office bearers of the party and even grass root level workers to beef up the party structure as a prelude to the elections.
Meanwhile, things are going out of control in the AIADMK ruling faction led by Edapppadi and O Panneerselvam. The party has seen the expulsion of nearly 5,000 office bearers who were appointed by the Sasikala clan. The duo is easing out all Sasikala and TTV Dhinakaran loyalists from the party’s official positions. On Friday, Parithi Elamvazhuthi, the Dalit face of the party and more than 100 office bearers were expelled by the party leadership.
All the persons removed from the party by EPS and OPS were local leaders with full command over the grass root level workers. But the failure from the leadership is that they could not appoint new faces in place of the expelled leaders. There are reports that all is not well in the AIADMK but chief minister Palaniswamy and his deputy Panneerselvam strongly refuted the reports.
Meanwhile, Dhinakaran has set terms for the reunification of the party. “Chief Minister, his deputy and four other ministers should be removed from their positions. We are ready to nominate any one of the 18 disqualified MLAs as the chief minister,” said Dhinakaran while interacting with reporters. Gnanasekaran, a former Tamil Manila Congress MLA met Dhinakaran at his residence in Chennai and declared his support for the young leader.