OPS, EPS meet PM Narendra Modi in New Delhi

In a politically significant development, warring leaders of Tamil Nadu’s principal Opposition party AIADMK, O Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami, on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and discussed the current political situation in the state.

Palaniswami and Panneerselvam met Modi along with senior AIADMK leaders at the Parliament House complex. The meeting comes on the heels of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) conducting searches at the premises belonging to former AIADMK minister M R Vijayabhaskar, and ousted party leader V K Sasikala upping the ante seeking to unsettle the leadership.

Though the two leaders said they discussed issues relating to Tamil Nadu during their meeting, politics was the main agenda in the discussion. The leaders are believed to have briefed Modi about the DVAC action against party leaders, calling them “politically motivated”.

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For the record, Palaniswami told reporters that the AIADMK delegation demanded that adequate vaccines be given to the state and that the Union Government should not allow construction of a reservoir in Mekedatu across Cauvery river by Karnataka.

Palaniswami refused to answer a question on Sasikala. The AIADMK top brass meeting with Modi came after a day after Sasikala suggested in an interview to a channel backed by her family that the party should revert to singular leadership.

The raids at premises belonging to Vijayabhaskar are billed as the beginning of a long-drawn action by DVAC against alleged corruption deals during the AIADMK government. The AIADMK had termed the raids as “politically motivated”, but the DMK says the party’s manifesto has promised to set up a special court to try all corruption cases.

The DMK, while in Opposition, had submitted a “chargesheet” against half-a-dozen AIADMK ministers accusing them of corruption to Governor Banwarilal Purohit.