AIADMK, Tamil Nadu’s principal Opposition party, will lead the alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, its interim general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami announced on Tuesday, in what is seen as asserting the party’s position at a time when the BJP is making a concerted effort to make inroads in the state.
Palaniswami, also former chief minister, made the announcement at a meeting of district secretaries, MPs, MLAs, and spokespersons at the AIADMK headquarters. The meeting also saw senior leaders of the party voicing their opposition to any move to take expelled leader O Panneerselvam back into the AIADMK.
“The alliance for the 2024 polls will be led by the AIADMK. We will distribute seats to constituents of the alliance. Nobody can dictate to us. This was the essence of today’s meeting,” D Jayakumar, party’s organising secretary and a close confidante of EPS, told reporters.
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EPS also asked party leaders, functionaries, and cadres to start preparing for the 2024 polls and defeat the DMK, which came to power in May 2021. The AIADMK contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 2021 Assembly polls by stitching a rainbow coalition comprising BJP, PMK, TMC, and a host of smaller parties.
While the AIADMK led the alliance for the above-mentioned elections, there was speculation whether this could change in the 2024 polls given the BJP’s push especially after former Karnataka-cadre IPS officer K Annamalai was made the state unit chief.
In 2019 polls, the AIADMK contested 20 seats and gave the remaining 19 seats of the total 39 to alliance parties with BJP getting five. The alliance won only in Theni and lost the remaining 38 seats.
To be fair, the BJP had always admitted that AIADMK was the “majority player” in the alliance and others were only minor constituents. With EPS’ assertion, all doubts have now been cleared on the alliance – political observers feel there won’t be any major change in alliances in the state for the 2024 polls with DMK and Congress sticking together.
At the meeting, Palaniswami is believed to have launched a frontal attack on the DMK and its first family, accusing them of placing their “personal interests” above that of the state.
Sources said senior party leaders, Dindigul C Sreenivasan, and Natham R Viswanathan, tore into Panneerselvam for his assertions against the party. “We should never admit him back into the party,” Sreenivasan told the meeting, while Viswanathan said the former chief minister has no support within the party.
AIADMK, which is now split into several factions following the death of Jayalalithaa, is an ally of the BJP, which had played an important role in the merger of EPS and OPS factions in 2017 that eventually saved the Dravidian party-led government in Tamil Nadu. However, this time, the BJP decided to stay away from the AIADMK’s internal crisis by taking a neutral stand.
OPS, who stood for Jayalalithaa twice when she had to resign as chief minister due to corruption cases, lost his clout within the party after the 2017 Marina Rebellion against Sasikala even as EPS consolidated his position within the party by completing his tenure and leading the AIADMK to the best-ever performance in a losing election.