Since her return from prison ahead of the state elections last year, VK Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dhinakaran have been making manoeuvres; some direct, some subtle, and many obviously tactless to grab the reins of power of the AIADMK.
In recent months, Sasikala has released audios of phone conversations with disgruntled partymen who implore her to return to the helm. Other than grabbing the headlines for a day or two, they did little to impress the rank and file.
On and off, she would address the partymen directly through statements, exhorting them to unite and “find a leader” who would return the party to its former glory, to the times of its founder MG Ramachandran and his protégé J Jayalalithaa, who had kept up the fierce rivalry with the DMK over five decades.
In the backdrop of these repeated failures has arrived a fresh twist in the tale.
Last week, the partymen of Theni — from where party coordinator O Panneerselvam hails and a stronghold of the AIADMK — passed a resolution to work to get Sasikala back at the helm. Following this sudden development, the usual statements were released: Panneerselvam said he had nothing to do with it, Palaniswami and his faction got into a huddle, and the silent parleys between the two factions began with former ministers acting as arbiters between Palaniswami and Panneerselvam.
Since the death of Jayalalithaa in December 2016, the AIADMK has been in a constant state of internal turmoil, with both the caretaker leaders Panneerselvam and Palaniwami barely keeping it together. But this time, Sasikala’s overture to the AIADMK’s current leaders (EPS and OPS) arrives at a time the party has been decimated at the hustings, first in the assembly elections and now in the urban local body polls.
Even the BJP, which won four lawmaker seats by riding the coat-tails of the AIADMK, decided to dump the party. Chennai was a washout, like many other important districts.
Not just an electoral drubbing, morale within the party is at an all-time low. Former minister D Jayakumar has been in prison over multiple cases (land grabbing, for parading a man naked on polling day, and one other case), and the AIADMK just put up a couple of protests over it, and moved on.
Palaniswami has been embroiled in the Kodanad murder-heist case — the DMK government has decided to expand the probe and the witnesses and accused have been making troublesome statements about the involvement of Palaniswami.
There has been a raid blitzkrieg on former AIADMK ministers SP Velumani, P Thangamani, C Vijayabaskar, KC Veeramani, KP Anbalagan, and MR Vijayabaskar. The DVAC has found incriminating evidence in some cases. Clearly, law’s due process on all these counts spells trouble for AIADMK’s firepower in the future.
It’s in this beleaguered political and administrative state that AIADMK finds itself faced with VK Sasikala and TTV Dhinakaran, both claiming to be the true inheritors of Jayalalithaa’s political estate (her financial one went to her elder’s brother’s children).
Sasikala is no Jayalalithaa, for she has spent all her life as a backroom operator, not showing any finesse to win hearts through speeches or fight back like Jayalalithaa did in the state assembly debates. But then Stalin, by his own admission, is no Kalaignar, and he rules. Will the AIADMK’s decision makers — Panneerselvam and Palaniswami — take all this into consideration as they ponder how to pull the party from the abyss it has sunk into?
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