Chennai: It is celebration time at the AIADMK headquarters as the Election Commission of India has recognised Edappadi K. Palaniswami as the party’s interim general secretary and also agreed to make changes to the party’s bylaws as per the resolutions passed in the general council meeting held last year.
The resolutions passed include making Palaniswami the interim general secretary and also expel his adversary O. Panneerselvam (OPS) and a few of his supporters.
A cake was cut at the headquarters on Thursday and Palaniswami was all smiles. Later, speaking to the media, he said that his party is the only AIADMK and there are no other factions or parties by the name. He also said that he will work to make AIADMK win the assembly elections soon, though the present assembly term is till 2026.
Palaniswami became chief minister in 2017 after former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa’s close aide V.K. Sasikala chose him to succeed Panneerselvam after he rebelled against her. She was also convicted and sentenced to prison in a disproportionate assets case involving Jayalalithaa and others, and therefore could not become chief minister.
Palaniswami managed to keep his party intact and also his government for the full term from 2017 to 2021. Now that he has been recognised not only by the Election Commission but also earlier by the Supreme Court, Palaniswami has proved that he is the real successor to Jayalalithaa, popularly called Amma.
But there are big challenges waiting for Palaniswami. He may have been recognised by the EC, SC as well as with his party cadres, but the former chief minister is yet to get the people’s support for the party to the extent of making it a ruling party in the state.
Since Palaniswami took charge in 2017, his first test was the byelection held to the RK Nagar constituency represented by Jayalalithaa. AIADMK lost to Sasikala’s nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran, who contested as an independent.
The next test was the 2019 Lok Sabha election and AIADMK managed to win only the Theni seat, which was won by OPS’s son P .Ravindranath. The vote share declined to 19.39% from 44.92% recorded in 2014 Lok Sabha elections in which Jayalalithaa won a record 37 seats.
Along with the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, byelections were held to 22 assembly seats as 18 AIADMK MLAs were disqualified by the speaker under the anti-defection law after they met the governor and expressed loss of confidence in Palaniswami.
Along with disqualification, some MLAs also passed away, creating the need to hold byelections. AIADMK managed to win nine of the 22 assembly seats, saving the government headed by Palaniswami. This is the biggest win in elections for Palaniswami so far, as the party lost the assembly elections in 2021 with a vote share of 33.29% winning 66 seats.
The AIADMK also lost the Urban Local Body elections as the DMK swept all 21 Corporation Mayor posts, winning in 128 out of 138 municipalities and 400 out of 480 town panchayats.
Thus, the major test for Palaniswami is to get the people’s support and win a majority of the 39 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. There are hurdles here too for the AIADMK interim general secretary.
In Tamil Nadu, it is alliance arithmetic which wins elections. In the 2021 assembly elections, AIADMK had BJP, PMK and smaller parties in its alliance. After the assembly elections, PMK walked out of the AIADMK alliance and is supporting the ruling party DMK in the assembly.
AIADMK as of now is left with the BJP and a few smaller parties. On the other side, DMK’s secular alliance is intact with Congress, two Left Parties, MDMK and VCK. Palaniswami has also the big task of winning the minority votes despite having BJP in its alliance.
Apart from election challenges, Palaniswami also faces legal hurdles. The first and foremost among the legal hurdle is the Kodanad heist case. The Kodanad tea estate of Jayalalithaa was robbed in 2017, and a security guard Om Bahadur was found dead while his colleague Krishna Bahadur was wounded.
Police said 11 men were involved in the heist and murder. Two of the suspected accused Kanagaraj, who served as Jayalalithaa’s driver, and Sayan, died in separate road accidents within a week after the robbery during which some documents were stolen.
The case came back to life after the DMK government took charge and it is being heard in the lower court in Nilgiri district. On Thursday, there were heated arguments on this case in the assembly and chief minister M.K. Stalin vowed to bring out the truth at the earliest. Palaniswami must hope to clear his name in this case.
The next is the anti-corruption case pending with the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC). Recently, the Tamil Nadu government accorded sanction to the DVAC to register a detailed inquiry and investigate allegations of irregularities against Palaniswami in the construction of buildings for government medical colleges across the state.
If the DVAC is able to prove the allegations against Palaniswami it may take a different turn which may prove costly to the AIADMK interim general secretary.
Thus, Palaniswami must hope to cross personal hurdles as well as challenges in the public arena.
“Palaniswami has proved that he is the only leader of our party and this is a big win for us. Each political leader will have challenges, and similarly Palaniswami also has and he will overcome all the hurdles and lead us to victory in the coming elections,” said a former AIADMK minister.
But analysts are stating that it is not that easy to cross the hurdles before Palaniswami. “He needs to win over Dhinakaran’s party Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) which spoiled AIADMK’s chances in 21 seats in the 2021 elections,” said a political analyst.
He said that even with the 66 MLAs AIADMK has won, nearly 50% are from the Western Region of the state and belong to the caste which he belongs to. Thus, Palaniswami has to prove he is a pan-Tamil Nadu leader and not just for the western region, said the analyst.