AIADMK suffers vertical split; Tamil Nadu CM Vijay meets ‘rebel’ group

Chennai: AIADMK on Tuesday suffered a vertical split with a group led by former ministers S P Velumani and C Ve Shanmugam rebelling against Edappadi K Palaniswami and declaring their support for the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government led by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay. The rebel faction said they were forced to rebel against Palaniswami as he tried to forge an alliance with the DMK to return to power any cost.

However, the faction led by Palaniswami met newly-elected Speaker J C D Prabhakar on Tuesday afternoon and submitted a letter that Palaniswami was the leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party. Senior leader Agri S S Krishnamurthy said the party has issued a whip to the AIADMK MLAs that they should vote against the TVK government and warned of action if they did not follow the whip.

He also dismissed the claims of the rebel group that Palaniswami held talks with the DMK.

The rebel faction received a boost when Vijay drove to the office of Shanmugam to meet them as part of his “courtesy calls” being extended to senior political leaders. However, Vijay didn’t meet AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, who turned 72 today.

It is unclear as to how the rebel MLAs, whose number is about 24 of the 47 legislators who won on AIADMK tickets, will extend their support to the TVK – whether they will abstain from the trust vote on Wednesday and vote in favour of the government. With or without their support, Vijay’s government will pass the trust vote as it needs just about 116 MLAs.

It is also said that Vijay is unlikely to get the MLAs support immediately as it might sully his image and embarrass “secular forces” like the Congress, Left, VCK, and IUML that have extended support to his government.

The rebel MLAs said Palaniswami has lost their trust after he declared that he would like to become Chief Minister with DMK’s support last week. “We were shocked to hear such a statement from him as we have been fighting the DMK for 50 years. How can he even say that,” Shanmugam told reporters.

He said S P Velumani has been elected as the Legislature Party leader and G Hari as his deputy.

Velumani, who was one of the close aides of EPS ever since he became the Chief Minister in 2017, expressed no confidence against Palaniswami and asked him to convene the General Council of the party at the earliest to discuss the future course of action. “We don’t want the AIADMK to split. We want the party to be united and that is why we are asking for the GC to be convened,” Velumani said.

The rebel group is also backed by legislator Leema Rose, wife of lottery baron Santiago Martin and mother-in-law of TVK minister Aadhav Arjuna. If the MLAs want to break away and support TVK, they need to muster two numbers more so that they don’t attract disqualification.

Also, the MLAs want to usher in a new generation of leadership with Shanmugam, Velumani, and Vijayabaskar at the helm. They feel such an arrangement will augur well for the party as they belong to three dominant communities, Vanniyars, Gounders, and Mukulathors.

Palaniswami has been under pressure from the rebel legislators to quit and make way for other leaders to take over the AIADMK ever since the party was relegated to the third position in the elections, but he continues to resist their demand.