Tamil Nadu | Will the EPS-OPS political rivalry sink the AIADMK?

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The stage was all set for the coronation. On June 23, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) called for a General Council meeting, ostensibly to anoint former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) as the supreme leader of the AIADMK. The hall was packed with those who supported EPS’ claim to the party’s top job.

Sulking on stage, heavily outnumbered sat the challenger and former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam (OPS) along with a handful of his supporters. Buoyed by a late night court order that stated that no new resolution could be passed other than those already agreed upon, OPS who appeared to be down and out the previous day, seemed to have got a small reprieve.

Yet, what followed next was a botch up of spectacular proportions by the EPS camp. Instead of pushing through the move to declare EPS as party chief (and putting the matter to vote thus getting a formal endorsement) and saying that a formal resolution would be moved after getting the clearance from the court, EPS decided to reject all the 23 previously agreed upon resolutions stating they would be passed at a later meeting that they called for on July 11. The meeting wound up a few minutes later having achieved little sans the ‘election’ of a presidium chairman, a move also being challenged in court.

Strangely, team EPS, then said that the posts of party co-ordinator and co-coordinator that OPS and EPS had agreed upon four years ago to prevent their government from falling, had lapsed as they were not validated by the general council on time. This opened up another dimension to the tussle. If the resolution of them holding the posts itself was not valid anymore, who exactly was in charge of the AIADMK? OPS maintains that he remains party co-ordinator. The validity of the July 11 meeting has been challenged in court by the OPS faction. A long legal battle looms within the AIADMK with half a dozen issues dating back to over five years having all been placed for adjudication.

A weakened AIADMK that lost the 2021 assembly elections to the MK Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led alliance was hoping to at least prevent further erosion of its voter base by solving the leadership issue. That the party after 10 years in power still managed a more-than-decent tally of 66 seats was largely thought to be due to EPS’ leadership, and the way he held his government together overcoming multiple challenges.

EPS has overwhelming support within the party leadership, and by inference the same is thought to be the position among the party cadre too (there has hardly been any support forthcoming for OPS beyond his native Theni district). Heavily outnumbered, OPS now hopes that he can drag the leadership tussle through the courts long enough for things to change politically.

OPS also banks on the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been seen to be on his side in the past. During his visit to Delhi to endorse National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominee for President, Draupadi Murmu, he apparently sought to meet the BJP top brass, but was rebuffed. The BJP does not want the AIADMK to implode in the near future, at least not before the 2024 general elections, as the saffron party does not believe that it has achieved critical mass as yet in Tamil Nadu to take on the DMK without a reasonably strong AIADMK in tow.

A state like Tamil Nadu needs a strong centrist party with an inclusive approach like the AIADMK. Buffeted as the state is between two hard-line parties, the ruling DMK with their Dravidian ideology and the emerging BJP with its Hindutva ideology, a party like the AIADMK with a please-all approach and one that drew support from almost all castes and community groupings in the state (until their tie up with BJP) should have found appeal with a sizable segment of the electorate.

But Tamil Nadu has a tradition of voting for larger-than-life leaders, much more than the parties they represent. Well aware of his limited charisma, EPS was hoping to hold the AIADMK together for the near future, until maybe, the state moved away from the ‘vote for a leader’ model. As Chief Minister he showed decisiveness almost every time he needed to. But as party leader, over the last year, he has been indecisive, and unable to take hard decisions to establish his leadership.

Has EPS snatched defeat from the jaws of victory? The odds are still overwhelmingly in favour of him gaining control of the party. But the longer the legal battles and the political shenanigans go on, the more time OPS and maybe even others have of trying to upstage him. If EPS does not succeed, the events of June 23 will come back to haunt him. Until the leadership issue is resolved, the AIADMK which once commanded 45 percent of vote share in Tamil Nadu will continue to be in crisis.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.