Chennai: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, who recently met party functionaries in each of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies to take stock of the ground reality in the party, has quietly made the next move to consolidate his position in the party and ward of any coup d’etat attempt from other contenders to his throne by issuing new identity cards to cadre through the district secretaries.
Though it might look like a routine exercise for the district secretaries to hand over fresh party identity cards to cadre and local leaders, the present move is suspected to be a aimed at weeding out those who could be disloyal to the present leadership and might subscribe to the idea of taking back some leaders ousted from the party, say like like V K Sasikala and O Panneerselvam.
During the laborious meetings that Palaniswami held with the grassroots level functionaries he had to repeatedly shoot down the idea of readmitting Sasikala and Panneerselvam that was suggested for better electoral prospects in 2026 by many participants, who cited ‘lack of unity’ as the reason for the fiasco in the Lok Sabha polls.
It was Sasikala, and also Panneerselvam, who had been going around saying that AIADMK’s repeated debacles since 2014 were due to the lack of unity, which meant that the party votes were scattered because she and some other leaders were not with the AIADMK anymore. Since many cadre agreed with her, they were demanding the ‘unity’ that she was seeking for.
But Palaniswami has been firm in ruling out the admission of leaders ousted by the party general council. So there was a rumour that the supporters of ‘unity’ move might call for the convening of the general council with a view to placing a plea for rescinding the earlier expulsions, which could create a flutter as it would be viewed as dissidence in the party.
Now, Palaniswami might call for the general council on his own and put an end to the ‘unity’ demand once for all. So, it is said that he had asked his acolytes at the district level to cherry pick on the functionaries who would stand by him and his decisions and hand over the new id-cards, which could be made mandatory for admission into the General Council meeting venue.
The district secretaries and other office bearers are said to have started the process of distributing the new identity cards by meeting party cadre and functionaries personally.
Palaniswami feels that by maintaining the status quo in the party and then roping in a few more parties as allies for the 2006 Assembly polls, the AIADMK might be able to win the elections.
