A legal challenge to the Tamil Nadu Opposition Leader E. Palaniswami of AIADMK's iron hold on the party founded by M.G. Ramachandran and nurtured by J. Jayalalithaa was annulled in the Madras high court, which ruled that it cannot interfere with V.K. Sasikala’s expulsion from the party when she was nominally its interim general secretary.
Jaya’s confidante and aide, who was an extra-constitutional authority working from her residence in Poes Garden, may have had her political ambitions nipped in the bud by a sweeping Supreme Court order that convicted her of graft in 2017 in the case in which her deceased benefactor was the prime accused.
Disqualified from contesting any poll till 2027, six years after release from her four-year jail term for corruption, she was trying to resurrect herself by making a claim for a party post that had been taken away from her when she was serving time.
A lot of water has flowed down the Cauvery since Sasikala’s conviction in 2017 when she was on the cusp of getting herself sworn in as chief minister, a move thwarted by the then Tamil Nadu governor deliberately dragging his feet while waiting for the top court verdict.
Meanwhile, her own choice in Mr Palaniswami was sworn-in as chief minister over the claims of former CM O. Panneerselvam, since when ‘EPS’ has captured the party on working himself into a clear majority and went on to take the title of general secretary that was once Jaya’s.
Mr Palaniswami, who broke the hold of the Thevars on the AIADMK by ejecting both Sasikala and Mr Panneerselvam, is not only in total control of the party but has also become the lone strident voice of the Opposition in the state given OPS’s proclivity to play up to the ruling DMK.
OPS has not given up challenging Mr Palansiwami’s preeminent position in the party, which also has considerable funds at its disposal and so looked upon enviously. But it does appear that EPS is in de facto control of the party that was formed when MGR broke away from the DMK. Things are unlikely to change for the wannabe politician Sasikala and former CM Panneerselvam who stood in for Jaya whenever she was ineligible to hold the CM post.
