AIADMK’s emergent executive meeting may be a tame affair

AIADMK's executive meeting may not address re-unification calls, focusing more on legal requirements than substantive matters.

Despite the growing calls for re-unification of all groups owing allegiance to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) founder M.G. Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa, the party’s emergent executive meeting, scheduled for Friday, (August 16, 2024) may be a tame affair. 

Also read: Efforts are under way to re-unify all of AIADMK’s factions

Originally, it was planned to have a meeting of district secretaries and the headquarters office-bearers on August 9. But this was deferred and eventually, the scheduled meeting had been turned into the emergent executive meeting. A cross-section of the office-bearers and functionaries says the event on Friday is more to satisfy the legal requirement of having at least two meetings of the executive in a year than to discuss any substantive matter. Still, the possibility of discussing any organisational issue or matter cannot be ruled out.  

About a month ago, a group of senior leaders, including K.A. Sengottaiyan, Natham R. Viswanathan, S.P. Velumani, P. Thangamani, C. Ve. Shanmugam, and K.P. Anbalagan, met party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami and impressed upon him the need for bringing back all those who went out of the organisation. Though it was stated then that there would another round of discussion on the matter, the meeting between the group and Mr. Palaniswami had not yet taken place.  

Obviously, the idea behind the discussion was to create the “conducive climate for the re-union“ of former coordinator O. Panneerselvam, the former interim general secretary, V.K. Sasikala, and Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) founder T.T.V. Dhinakaran with the AIADMK.  

The senior leaders’ discussion with the general secretary took place in the backdrop of the party’s miserable performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. What was disturbing to the party was that it not only failed to get any seat but also forfeited deposit in seven constituencies and it was the runner-up in only 24 out of 34 constituencies it had contested. The decline in the average figure of votes polled per contested Lok Sabha constituency was about 30.4% this time, compared with its performance in 2019. However, Mr. Palaniswami, who recently completed a constituency-wise review of the party’s performance, has been contending that as against 2019, his party had secured one percentage point more this time. The party’s vote share for 2019 and 2024 was 19.39% and 20.57% respectively.  

Meanwhile, former Villivakkam MLA J.C.D. Prabhakar, who has teamed up with another MLA K.C. Palanisamy and former spokesperson Va. Pugazhendhi for the purpose of re-unification, expressed the hope a few days ago that the day was not far off when all the four leaders — Mr. Palaniswami, Mr. Panneerselvam, Mr. Dhinakaran and Ms. Sasikala — would meet.