Salem: In a smiling, tactical response, AIADMK senior and Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami on Saturday virtually ejected the party's former Madurai mayor and present MLA, Rajan Chellappa's plea that the party should return to the era of "strong, single leadership and unified command" as in the days of the party's founder-leader MGR and J Jayalalithaa.
When reporters drew Mr. Palaniswami's attention to Mr. Chellappa thinking aloud on this issue at Madurai and that many in the party wanted to raise it in the AIADMK's general council meeting, Chief Minister first said he did not know what the MLA had spoken. "Unless I see his statement or press interview in full and the context in which it was said, it is not possible for me to respond," said Palaniswami.
However, shortly later during the press meet at his home turf Edappadi near Salem, when the issue was raised somewhat differently with a reporter asking the Chief Minister whether 'dual leadership' was responsible for the AIADMK winning just one seat in the recent Lok Sabha polls, Mr. Palaniswami rejected that impression saying, "ours is an out-and-out cadres party and every cadre is a leader in the AIADMK."
"I have said this several times and all members of the party are leaders; when I keep saying there is no scope for even using the word (single) leader, what do I say when you throw such a question," Mr. Palaniswami shot back nonchalantly and reeled off the large number of welfare schemes the AIADMK has been implementing for the people, 'continuing with the legacy of MGR and Amma'.
"AIADMK thondar alugindra Iyakkam (AIADMK is a movement run by cadres)," he reiterated, adding, the party continued to be grow from strength to strength. The very fact that many of T T V Dhinakaran's supporters were returning to the parent party was proof of it, he added.
Charging that some people were acting in the expectation that the party will break and that the government will fall, Mr. Palaniswami said all such people were being proved wrong at every stage. The present AIADMK government will complete its full five-year term, he said.
Mr. Palaniswami, who earlier inaugurated a new bridge from Koundampatti to Nainampatti in his constituency, built across the river Surabanga at a cost of about `1.90 crore and several other infrastructure projects in that area, said all such projects, including the proposed eight-lane Salem-Chennai Expressway, were being implemented only for the people's benefit, to ease their pain, improve their access to a school or a hospital, and to help eliminate road accident deaths.
