Coming just a couple of days after Palaniswami was called to the national capital to meet Amit Shah, mystery shrouded Sengottaiyan’s trip as he had kept it under wraps by travelling by road from Erode to Madurai and then taking a flight to New Delhi to avoid media attention
Chennai: The sudden visit of senior AIADMK leader K A Sengottaiyan, who had been openly at loggerheads with the general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, to New Delhi on Saturday caused the raising of eyebrows in the party circles as leaders and cadre were intrigued over the successive meetings that he had with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Coming just a couple of days after Palaniswami was called to the national capital to meet Amit Shah, mystery shrouded Sengottaiyan’s trip as he had kept it under wraps by travelling by road from Erode to Madurai and then taking a flight to New Delhi to avoid media attention.
When asked about Sengottaiyan’s visit to Delhi, Palaniswami told media persons near Salem that he had no idea about it and added: ‘you may please ask him.’ Since Sengottaiyan, a senior leader of the party, had been protesting against the high command in many ways for quite some time, his meeting with Amit Shah and NIrmala Sitharaman seem to have more than it meets the eye.
When Amit Shah was asked by the media in Delhi about the BJP’s proposal for renewing its alliance with the AIADMK, he said efforts were on to bring back the party into the NDA, which, he hoped, would win the 2026 Assembly elections in the State.
Accusing the DMK of ruining the State and diverting the attention of the people by raising the bogey of delimitation even after he had given an assurance that Tamil Nadu’s representation in Parliament would not be affected at all, he said Chief Minister Stalin was kicking up a ruckus over the issue just to cover up his mistakes.
Amit Shah’s remarks triggered a spate of speculations on BJP trying to split the AIADMK to forge an alliance with the amenable group, probably comprising Sengottiayan and ousted leaders like former general secretary O Pannerselvam and T T V Dinakaran in the event of Palaniswami playing truant.
The BJP could also use the dispute over the AIADMK’s symbol, pending resolution, to arm twist the party to toe its line and agree for an electoral alliance.
If not, the open rebellion of Sengottaiyan, who first boycotted a meeting organized to felicitate Palanaiswami in February for executing the long pending Avinashi Athikadavu project, could be used to split the party. Sengottaiyan had said that the portraits of party icons, M G Ramachadran and J Jayalalithaa, were missing in the felicitation event to justify his protest.
But the party clarified, through organization secretary D Jayakumar that the event was organized by the farmers who benefitted from the execution of the project and the party had nothing to do with it. However, Sengottaiyan continued to sulk by not even mingling with the AIADMK MLAs during the Assembly session.
