Tamil Nadu Elections: Who will be AIADMK's CM candidate for 2021 polls?

Lasting for more than four and a half hours, in what seemed to be a heated discussion, the AIADMK executive committee meeting finally concluded with party leader E Madhusudhanan telling media that the final decision on who will be chosen as the AIADMK's Chief Ministerial candidate for the party for the upcoming 2021 elections will be announced on October 7. This was the second set of discussions held by the party members since the emergency meeting on September 18, with the party yet delaying to make the question that is on everyone’s mind: Who will be the next CM candidate chosen from the AIADMK? 

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The highly anticipated meeting took place at the party headquarters in Royapuram, Chennai on Monday morning which was headed by AIADMK praesidium chairman E Madhusudhanan. The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami, Deputy Chief Minister O Pannerselvam, and other executive members and lasted for over five hours. From banners to posters, to Tamil folklore singing praises of EPS and OPS, hundreds of cadres gathered in front of the party office. Supporters of the rival EPS and OPS factions raised slogans for their leaders as they arrived. A similar episode had played out two weeks back when O Pannerselvam had called for an emergency meeting.

Read: AIADMK Top Leader Panneerselvam Says Functionaries Should Be 'loyal' To The Party

Heated discussions take place

Though the agenda for the second set of meetings was to discuss the formation of the 11-member steering committee, a primary demand of the OPS-faction since 2017, there was no information on the same. With the elections coming round the corner, there are several issues that stand in the way of smooth function, one of them being the power-tussle between EPS and OPS. Of the heated discussions that took place today at the AIADMK party headquarters, discussions included not only arguments from both EPS  and OPS faction on who would be the Chief Ministerial candidate but also inevitably involved talks of the possible return of V.K Sasikala, the party’s former general secretary, who will be released from Bengaluru central jail in January 2021, just months ahead of the elections. 

According to sources in the party, O. Panneerselvam himself had reiterated his demand that an 11-member steering committee is formed at the earliest. In fact, this was one of the points of convergence between the two camps at the time of reconciliation three years ago. But the idea of a steering committee, according to EPS, would only add confusion and chaos in a party like AIADMK which had predominantly been a single-leader run party since it’s formation. 

Read: AIADMK Will Lead Alliance, Says TN CM Palaniswami, Ahead Of 2021 Polls

AIADMK's take on Sasikala's release

Meanwhile, the committee passed 15 resolutions in the meeting, including the AIADMK’s stand against the three-language policy. Some of the resolutions included urging the Centre to scrap NEET, disburse Goods and Services Tax dues, and provide support for Covid-19 relief and other subsidies. Further, the committee condemned the Karnataka government’s initiative to construct a dam across the Cauvery river at Mekedatu.

While there has been chatter about the return of V.K Sasikala, who was the former general secretary of the party, shutting down rumours, AIADMK’s minister D Jayakumar addressing the media two weeks back, said that neither his party nor the Tamil Nadu government is concerned with Sasikala's release from prison. “It doesn't matter to AIADMK, whether Sasikala gets released from prison or not. We stand by our decision to keep her away from the AIADMK and the government. We will continue the working of the government and the party without her interference," he said.

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(Image credits: @AIADMKOfficial)