AIADMK reaches out to influential Thevars post BJP break-up

Chennai: For the first time after losing power in 2021, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami will travel to Pasumpon village this month-end to pay his respects to freedom fighter and Forward Bloc leader Muthuramalinga Thevar, in a major outreach to southern Tamil Nadu, especially the influential Mukulathor community. 

The visit which will take place on October 30 on the occasion of 116^th birth anniversary of Muthuramalinga Thevar, who is revered by Thevars and other sub-castes that call themselves Mukulathors. Palaniswami skipped visiting Pasumpon in 2021 and 2022 but will visit the village this year as he prepares the AIADMK to lead an alliance of its own for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections following severing of ties with the BJP. 

Southern Tamil Nadu accounts for 10 Lok Sabha constituencies and 58 assembly segments. The AIADMK, which has always performed well in the region, suffered a massive setback in the past few years by winning just the Theni Lok Sabha seat in 2019 and emerging victorious in only 18 out of 58 assembly seats in 2021. 

Palaniswami’s outreach assumes significance as speculation mounts that AIADMK rebels T T V Dhinakaran and O Panneerselvam, who hail from the Mukulathor community, will join the BJP-led Third Front that is likely to take shape in the run-up to the polls. Dhinakaran’s AMMK had proved to be a spoiler for the AIADMK in the past elections and Palaniswami wants to ensure that the Mukulathor votes stay largely with the party as in the past and hence the outreach to the community in particular. 

Conscious to shed the Gounder tag that the party has acquired after he took over as Chief Minister in 2017, Palaniswami, in 2022, made Dindigul C Sreenivasan as the treasurer and R B Udhayakumar as his deputy in the AIADMK Legislature Party to send out an olive branch to Mukulathors, who wield considerable influence across the region. 

This will be his third visit to the region in three months – the AIADMK’s Golden Jubilee conference was held in Madurai, and the party’s 52nd Foundation Day public meeting in Sankarankovil. Palaniswami will also travel to Thanjavur, a region dominated by Kallars who also come under Mukulathors, on November 4.

However, Sreenivasan, AIADMK treasurer, told DH that there was no “special significance” in Palaniswami’s visits to southern Tamil Nadu as they are part of his tour across the state to rejuvenate cadres and get the party battle-ready for 2024 and 2026 assembly elections.

“We are very particular about the 2026 polls, and the visit by EPS to Pasumpon signifies that the AIADMK stands with everyone and doesn’t discriminate against people on caste or religious lines. Moreover, his visits will help us reach out to minority communities who kept away from the AIADMK due to our tie-up with the BJP,” the senior party leader added. 

Sreenivasan said the AIADMK analyzed the 2019 and 2021 election results and has found out the reasons for the defeat. “We have begun working on it. A lot of party cadres who left us (to TTV’s AMMK) are returning and once we regain our vote bank in the region in full, we will emerge stronger again. Coming out of the BJP alliance will also help us in the South,” he added. 

In the last couple of electoral outings, the AIADMK failed in the region that has sent party veterans M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa to the Assembly, due to several factors, including disintegration of the party into several factions. 

Senior journalist R Bhagwan Singh said: “By particularly reaching out to Mukulathors by participating in Thevar Jayanthi, EPS is sending out a signal that he shouldn’t be taken as an alien particularly since he has now established himself as the successor to Jayalalithaa.”