AIADMK’s rebels express unwillingness to accept new positions in the party
The AIADMK rebels, including former Ministers S.P. Velumani, P. Thangamani, and K.P. Anbalagan, have conveyed to party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami their unwillingness to
The AIADMK rebels, including former Ministers S.P. Velumani, P. Thangamani, and K.P. Anbalagan, have conveyed to party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami their unwillingness to accept the new posts assigned to them. After the dissidents went against the party’s stand to oppose the vote of confidence motion moved by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay in the Assembly on May 13, Mr. Palaniswami sacked 26 district secretaries. A few days later, he eased out more district secretaries from their post. On June 25, the general secretary did not restore the post of district secretary to any of the deposed functionaries, but offered them other positions. Mr. Velumani and another senior rebel, Natham R. Viswanathan, were made deputy general secretaries. At the same time, former Law Minister C.Ve. Shanmugam, a bitter critic of Mr. Palaniswami, was not given any post. Mr. Velumani, while addressing a meeting in Coimbatore last Sunday, wondered how he would accept the position when many of his colleagues had not been “properly accommodated” in the organisation. In a letter jointly signed, nine rebels accused Mr. Palaniswami of “not respecting” what was agreed between them at the time of truce in May, when the two MLA camps withdrew their complaints against each other for disqualification. Their communication, dated June 30, said the present state of affairs had arisen because of Mr. Palaniswami’s move to form a government with the DMK’s help. It would not have occurred if he had decided to remain an Opposition party, the letter added.
Mr. Viswanathan; former Ministers K.C. Veeramani and P. Balakrishna Reddy; and former secretaries of the Tenkasi (north), Ranipet (west) and Cuddalore (west) units C. Krishnamurali, S.M. Sukumar, and A. Arunmozhithevan were the other signatories. Shanmugam was not a part of this group of rebels. Thangamani and Mr. Anbalagan, who were the party’s district secretaries of the Namakkal and Dharmapuri units till the revolt and held the portfolios of Electricity and Higher Education in the previous AIADMK regime (2016-21), were made organisation secretaries in the latest action of the party general secrertary. They told The Hindu on Wednesday they would prefer to remain “ordinary volunteers” of the party. Asked whether they would switch over to the TVK or the DMK, they emphatically said they would not leave the organisation, and clarified that they were not against the party leadership. The former Electricity Minister recalled that when the factions led by Janaki Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa came together in February 1989 and the groups headed by O. Panneerselvam (now in the DMK) and Mr Palaniswami patched up in August-September 2017, those who held positions in the party were given back their posts. “Let me make one point clear: We are not against the party leadership. EPS [Mr Palaniswami] is our general secretary,” he observed. Was the decision not to accept the new position made out of Mr Palaniswami not giving back the post of district secretary? “No” was the answer of Mr Anbalagan.
The BriefWire