The AIADMK general council is all set to meet on Thursday amid the growing frictions within the party. At a time when several writ petitions seeking direction to the election commission to order for general secretary elections are pending before the court, all eyes will be on what Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam will convey to the party cadres. With the 2019 polls just a few months away, the onus is on these two leaders to steer the fractured party to victory.
With the AIADMK's cadre strength coming down drastically from 1.5 crore to a meagre 60 lakhs, the meeting becomes much more crucial to ensure that the AIADMK legislative party is predominantly behind the EPS-OPS combine. While the two factions are to continue to act as the double-barrel gun just to balance power, both in the government and within the party, sidelined AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran has got all his steps measured in an attempt to pull down the government.
It's an year after the merger, the AIADMK general council is meeting with OPS and EPS as the coordinator and joint coordinator of the party respectively. The last general council had seen the expulsion of V.K. Sasikala and nullified all the decisions taken by her.
It was after the last general council in September 2017 that the party bylaws were amended. It abolished the post of general secretary saying the coordinator and joint coordinator will take the policy decisions in the party and also made late Jayalalithaa the “eternal general secretary” of the party.
"The post of general secretary was abolished and the coordinator and joint coordinator were nominated temporarily in the last general council. The 2017 general council passed a resolution saying elections will be held to these two posts and a 11-member steering committee will be constituted. It remains to be seen if the elections will be held. Also, the petitions pending before the court will only decide the future of the party," says senior journalist Tharasu Shyam.
Constituting the 11-member steering committee is still a challenge for the AIADMK as the frictions within the party are apparent, says Shyam.
The Election Commission of India on its website, while publishing the amended bylaw, has said the amendments will come into force in retrospective effect from 1976, which means from the days of late party veteran and former chief minister M.G. Ramachandran.
"This is a grave mistake and the general council will now have to pass a resolution to write to the ECU to get the error rectified," says an MLA from the T.T.V. Dhinakaran camp.
Meanwhile, expelled AIADMK member K.C. Palanisamy's representation to the election commission challenging the validity of abolishing the post of general secretary in AIDMK and consequent resolutions is still pending. He filed the petition before the poll panel on September 12, 2017.
Since the EC failed to act on his representation, Palanisamy moved the Delhi High Court and obtained a direction to the EC to decide his representation in four weeks. However, OPS and EPS moved a division bench seeking a stay on this order.
Curiously, they engaged senior counsel Neeraj Kishan Kaul, brother of SC judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul.
But Justice Hima Kohli and Rekha Palli refused to stay the order. The bench gave liberty to OPS and EPS to represent their case before the commission. It also directed the commission not to pass an order till Palanisamy submits his side of the case before the division bench.
Even when the general council is meeting on Thursday, the future of the AIADMK, it seems, is in the hands of the Delhi High Court.