A poem published recently in Namadhu Amma, the mouthpiece of the AIADMK, has made it clear that Edappadi Palaniswami is charting his own course and has no intention of welcoming his mentor Sasikala and her family back into the fold.
“Till MGR and Jayalalithaa’s thoughts stand by us, AIADMK will thrive.
For it to be finished in a jiffy, AIADMK is not a mushroom that sprouted after a night’s rain.
It is a movement which is deep-rooted and extensively spread like branches of a tree.
This is not Lala shop (a sweet shop) which has branches for every other person,” read the poem in Tamil written by Chitraguptan, the pen name used by Namadhu Amma’s Editor Marudhu Alaguraj.
The poem, that has also taken names of Sasikala’s nephews TTV Dhinakaran, V Baskaran and VN Sudhakaran and her brother V Dhivakaran, seems to be in response to the Mannargudi family’s claims of a merger between the AIADMK and AMMK. The poem was also scathing and referred to TTV Dhinakaran as ‘Tihar’karan, an obvious reference to his short stint in Tihar jail in 2017.
After the death of J Jayalalithaa in 2016, the AIADMK split into two factions — One led by VK Sasikala and the other led by O Panneerselvam, a close confidante of J Jayalalithaa. While Sasikala picked Edappadi K Palaniswami to succeed Jayalalithaa in the Chief Minister’s chair and called her faction the actual AIADMK, O Panneerselvam continued to be a rebel outside of the party. After Sasikala was imprisoned in the Disproportionate Assets case, Edappadi Palaniswami and Panneerselvam set aside their differences and merged their factions under the name AIADMK, leaving a group of Sasikala’s loyalists out. This group of loyalists, led by Sasikala’s nephew TTV Dhinakaran formed the AMMK.
Once handpicked by VK Sasikala herself to be a proxy Chief Minister on her behalf, Edappadi Palaniswami seems to have moved out of her shadow, though he has stayed away from personally criticising her. While the current AIADMK government faces no threat in completing its term of five-years at St George Fort, it remains to be seen if Palaniswami will be able to keep the party together during the state Assembly Elections due in 2021. The recent bye-poll victories have improved his stature within the party and it is from this victory that his ambition to hold on to the party’s reins stems from.
The details around her coming out of the prison remain hazy, but if things go as per plan, Sasikala will come out of prison in the beginning of 2021, a few months before the state goes to polls.
Though there are rumours that she may be released even earlier on the basis of good conduct, a section of lawyers maintain that the rules are not applicable in Sasikala’s case. It is certain that once she is released, there will be a churn in the AIADMK. There are loyalists in the party who owe their political careers to Sasikala and her clan and if she chooses to take the plunge into active politics, the loyalty of these men will be under test.
Edappadi has been able to keep the party together, primarily, because they are in power. He has, however, in the last few months managed to eclipse O Panneerselvam.
Edappadi Palaniswami, who was an invisible minister prior to Jayalalithaa’s demise, has climbed up the political ladder, while Deputy CM O Panneerselvam who had gained supporters for rebelling against Sasikala, has seen his fortune slide since.
TTV Dhinakaran has repeatedly on record denied a merger with the AIADMK, and according to sources, even Sasikala has not insisted on it during her meetings with the family. But with the rumours persisting, it is necessary for EPS to negate them and tell party cadres that there is no ambiguity over who the boss is and will continue to be.
