O Panneerselvam, Jayalalithaa's chosen man & former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, joins arch-rival DMK

Chennai: Three-time AIADMK Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who was chosen by the late J Jayalalithaa twice to act as stand-in for her when she had to quit due to corruption cases, joined the ruling DMK on Friday -- a boost to Chief Minister M K Stalin’s image ahead of the April-May assembly elections.

The decision by Panneerselvam (75), who was widely regarded as the BJP’s man in the AIADMK after Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016, to join the DMK stunned many, though it was not completely unexpected as it became increasingly clear that Edappadi K Palaniswami was not willing to re-induct him into the party.

Though the DMK gains in terms of optics by inducting OPS -- a true-blue AIADMK man -- into the party, the Dravidian major also come under severe criticism for rolling out the red carpet to those coming from other parties.

The development comes a week after the DMK welcomed late actor Vijayakanth’s DMDK into the alliance to further strengthen the combine for the assembly elections, which is likely to be a four-cornered contest.

The political impact of OPS’s arrival for the DMK will be minimal, as the former Chief Minister does not have a base beyond his home district of Theni, though a section of the dominant Mukulathors -- the community to which V K Sasikala and T T V Dhinakaran also belong -- might support him.

If Sasikala too fields candidates in southern Tamil Nadu and if DMK uses OPS as an asset to woo the Mukulathors, the AIADMK might suffer a setback due to the split in community votes.

The Mukulathors, who have long supported the AIADMK, began distancing from the party since 2021 with OPS and TTV Dhinakaran pushing the AIADMK candidates to the third slot in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Apart from projecting Stalin as an inclusive man who even accepts his fiercest rivals, the induction will also help the DMK project EPS as an “non-accommodative” under whose leadership even senior leaders have quit the AIADMK.

“OPS has joined his parent party to safeguard the Dravidian movement's ideology. The 2026 Assembly election is a democratic battle between Tamil Nadu and the fascist BJP. It is with this realisation that various democratic forces are joining the DMK alliance,” Stalin said in a social media post, welcoming OPS into the party.

As Stalin spoke about opposing the BJP, the irony was not lost. OPS has been accused of letting the saffron party interfere in the internal affairs of the AIADMK in the post-Jayalalithaa era. In fact, Stalin had accused OPS and EPS of giving the BJP a “back-door entry” into Tamil Nadu during the 2016-2021 AIADMK rule -- he continues to allege that the AIADMK regime was responsible for all problems that the state faces today, including NEET.

Social media was dotted with old posts of Stalin accusing OPS of corruption and surrendering Tamil Nadu’s rights to the BJP, inviting criticism over whether the DMK was a “regional washing machine.” The DMK had filed corruption cases against OPS in the past with people wanting to know what will happen to those cases now.