AIADMK Coordinator O Panneerselvam on Wednesday asserted his party will remain intact under the present set up of dual leadership and that none can capture it. The AIADMK, he said, has since the last four-and-a-half years demonstrated it can run its affairs under the dual leadership of coordinator and joint coordinator K Palaniswami and no individual or a person from a family can capture or gain control of the party.
"An individual or a person from a particular family can never capture the AIADMK, which has democratically elected me and Palaniswami as coordinator and joint coordinator to guide the party. The AIADMK general council and cadres have endorsed this arrangement and we have been discharging our duties democratically," he told reporters in Theni, while responding to a question on expelled AIADMK leader VK Sasikala's reported claim to stage a comeback to 'retrieve' the party.
In audio tapes that surfaced recently in the social media containing the alleged conversation Sasikala had with some of the party men, she purportedly claimed she would stage a political comeback and take control of the AIADMK.
Panneerselvam said the AIADMK's foundation, laid by late leaders M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, was so strong that the party will remain intact under the present arrangement of dual leadership. To a question, he said, "I will be the first person to depose before the Arumugasamy Commission of inquiry (probing former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's death) once the Supreme Court vacates the stay."
Twice the commission had kept aside his hearing and he had already assured that he would come for the next hearing. "But following a plea from Apollo hospital, the Supreme court ordered a stay," Panneerselvam, a former Chief Minister, added. Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital for 75 days before her death on December 5, 2016.
Meanwhile, Sasikala's nephew and AMMK General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran had on Tuesday told reporters in Trichy that both he and his aunt were bent on retrieving the party from "detractors". With a well-established office at her T Nagar residence, Sasikala is continuing to make calls to party functionaries across the state but focussing on those in Salem and Theni, the home districts of party leaders K Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam, respectively.
With PTI and IANS inputs