‘Unity,’ the only panacea for AIADMK: OPS

Chennai: Peeved by AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami digging in his heels on his position to never take back ‘rebels’ who were expelled from the party on the occasion of the anniversary of the party’s founding on Thursday, ousted leader O Panneerselvam proposed ‘unity’ as the sole panacea for the party to regain its past glory.

Warning of the AIADMK’s vote bank eroding further and the party facing more debacles in future without the ‘unity,’ Panneerselvam, in a statement on Friday, said the party had already plunged itself into an abyss from which it would not able to come out unless the leaders got together before the 2026 Assembly polls and put up an united fight.

Pointing out that in the last Lok Sabha polls, the AIADMK candidates had lost their deposits in 7 seats, had finished third in 12 constituencies and pushed to the fourth place in Kanyakumari and Puducherry seats, he blamed it on the ‘betrayal’ of Palaniswami with specifying his name.

The betrayal had buried the party that was for all before the passing of former general secretary J Jayalalithaa as Palaniswami had backstabbed those who recommended him for the Chief Minister’s post, those who installed him there and those who enabled his continuation, leading to the people losing faith on him, Panneerselvam said.

The vote share that had plunged from 45 per cent to 20 per cent would not go up until all leaders were brought into the party fold, he said, calling up everyone to take a pledge for unity among themselves.

Referring to the politically righteous position taken by Palaniswami to keep the expelled leaders out, Panneerselvam said after pushing the party to the depths of the abyss, the betrayers were talking about sacrifice and that it sounded like the devil quoting the scriptures.