Soon after the ultimatum was issued to him from Gobichettipalaym in Erode district, Palaniswami cancelled his scheduled pre-noon consultation with various farmers’ association representatives at Theni.
Chennai: Senior AIADMK leader and former Minister K A Sengotaiyan dropped a bombshell on Friday threatening his party leadership of embarking on a direct action, along with like-minded party colleagues, to bring back former party honchos who left the party for various reasons if no steps were initiated in the next 10 days to ‘unite’ the party, which he said was the panacea to all the setbacks that it had been facing on the electoral front of late.
Though the call for ‘unity’ in the AIADMK is not new after it splintered into various groups following the installation of Edappadi K Palaniswami on the saddle and even Sengottiayan, who has been in the party since its launch by M G Ramachandran in 1972, has already voiced his concern about the splits, the press conference on Friday at Gobichettipalayam drew widespread interest in the media and political circles.
Soon after the ultimatum was issued to him from Gobichettipalaym in Erode district, Palaniswami cancelled his scheduled pre-noon consultation with various farmers’ association representatives at Theni. Some sources said the top leaders were angry with the vehement move to rope in the leaders whom Palaniswami did not want to bring into the fold.
Sengottaiyan, who had been a Minister three times and an MLA 9 times, has been advocating the ‘unity,’ which in other words mean to bring back ousted leaders like V K Sasikala, O Panneerselvam, T T V Dinakaran and their supporters into the party fold, for a long time and even undertook a journey to New Delhi to meet BJP top brass.
Ahead of Friday’s press conference, too, he had warned of making an announcement about the party. So the event drew a huge crowd of his supporters, too, giving an indication that many functionaries were keen on the party’s unification before the 2026 Assembly elections because the popular impression was that the consecutive electoral debacles of the recent past were due to the splintering of the vote bank.
Apart from many leaders like Sengottaiyan, even the prime ally of the AIADMK, the BJP, wants the unification to happen and has been encouraging many disgruntled leaders from within and outside the AIADMK to speak in favour of it at various forums though Palaniswami has been putting his foot down saying that those expelled were traitors and have no place in the party.
Immediate praise for Sengottaiyan raising the banner of protest against Palaniswami came from V K Sasikala, who issued a statement in a letter head bearing the designation ‘general secretary’ of AIADMK and saying ‘let’s unite, let’s win.’
Unlike her nephew T T V Dhinakaran, who launched his own party, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) soon after he was expelled from the AIADMK, Sasikala has been claiming that she was till with the AIADMK holding the same post from which she was dismissed.
Since Sengottaiyan was suggesting that the ousted leaders just wanted to return to the party fold and were not keen on holding posts, the letter from Sasikala only sent across the message that he could be wrong and also those expelled were eyeing for positions in the party.
Besides Sasikala, leaders like Pannerselvam, too welcomed Sengottaiyan’s move to find a place for the ousted leaders in the party with a warning that the AIADMK would be trounced in the elections otherwise. However, most of the AIADMK top leaders were firmly behind Palaniswami, supporting his stand on accommodating the expelled leaders.
So if Sengottaiyan presses for the demand further or makes efforts along with like-minded functionaries for the unity that he wants, it could lead to the party leadership initiating disciplinary action against him, which could lead to a split in the party. Such a split could even give rise to the emergence of another front, the fourth one other than the DMK-led coalition, the AIADMK-BJP alliance and the TVK.
