AIADMK feud: Sasikala extends olive branch to Panneerselvam

A day after O. Panneerselvam, popularly known as OPS, was elected as the deputy leader of the AIADMK legislature party, the party’s expelled leader V.K. Sasikala seems to have extended an olive branch to him. In a set of fresh audio clips released by Sasikala on Tuesday, she said that “OPS resigned voluntarily as chief minister and that if he had not resigned, she would have passed on the party and the chief minister baton to him when she went to jail in 2017.”

Speaking to Sivanesan, one of her supporters in the AIADMK from Panneerselvam’s home town of Theni, Sasikala said that “if he had not done that [resign], I would have retained him as CM”. And Sivanesan in the audio clip is heard saying “if Ayya (Panneerselvam) had not quit, then he would have prevented you from undertaking vanavasam (her going to jail to serve the four-year term)”. Sasikala talking to Sivanesan was one of the nine audio clips released on Tuesday by her office in Chennai. Sasikala’s conversation with Sivanesan, however, raises doubts over the statements made by Panneerselvam in 2017, saying he was “compelled” to quit as the chief minister by Sasikala and her family.

In the other audio clips, she is heard saying how the AIADMK has now turned into a party of one particular community from west Tamil Nadu, indirectly referring to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Referring to the AIADMK’s action of expelling those who spoke to her over phone, she wondered what was “the point in going on sacking the party workers”.

“Is this the way to treat those who have worked for the party sincerely?” she is heard asking in one of the audio clips. In a direct attack on Palaniswami, whom she once chose as the chief minister to head the government in 2017, she accused him of placing Gounders (his own community) in all positions, which never happened in the history of AIADMK under M.G.R. and Jayalalithaa. “He has sidelined leaders from other castes,” she openly criticised. In yet another audio clip, she is heard saying about how she was “backstabbed” by everyone after she went to jail, why she “stepped aside” from politics and the necessity for her to come and “retrieve” the party. “I have been backstabbed many times,” she is heard saying. Criticising the move to expel party cadre for speaking to her, Sasikala openly blamed the present leadership for the loss in the Assembly elections.

Sasikala’s conversations, a day after 15 people, including former ministers, were expelled from the party for talking to her, have stirred a hornet’s nest in the AIADMK, which is already suffering a leadership crisis. The party has been witnessing an unsettling internal feud between Panneerselvam and Palaniswami for the past four years, despite the factions of the two leaders merging. While the party managed to win 66 seats in the recently concluded elections, only to sit in the opposition, it had lost in most of its strongholds in south Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK leaders who were expected to sit down and introspect the reasons for the loss in the elections, were busy holding several rounds of talks to elect the opposition party leader, deputy leader and the whip. A visibly upset Panneerselvam had to settle for the deputy leader post, as he doesn’t have a following in the party like his colleague Palaniswami.

Meanwhile, there are also several rumours doing the rounds of Panneerselvam being in talks with Sasikala, in an attempt to bring her back into the AIADMK. Sasikala’s conversation on Tuesday, however, made it clear that she still has a place in her calculations for Panneerselvam while considering Palaniswami as a betrayer.

However, the infighting in the AIADMK is not likely to subside immediately.