Chennai: With the Tamilnadu Assembly polls about 7-8 months away, the crucial executive committee meeting of the ruling AIADMK would be held here today in which some key decisions were likely to be taken.
Party sources said it was a routine meeting as the executive and the General Council has to be convened every year to comply with the Election Commission norms.
Since the General Council has to be convened by the end of this year, the meeting might decide the date for convening it to ratify the decisions to be taken today.
The meeting was being held in the backdrop of recent fissures in the party over who would be the CM candidate for the Assembly elections, with supporters of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami saying he would be the natural choice, while those loyal to Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam asserting that he would be the choice.
As the issue apparently threatened to disturb the party’s unity ahead of the elections, senior Ministers held various rounds of separate parleys with both of them on Independence Day after which Mr Pannneerselvam and Palaniswami, who were also the AIADMK’s coordinator and joint coorinator respectively, issued a joint statement asking the party functionaries not to air their views publicly and also warned of stringent action against them.
This issue was expected to dominate the discussions in the meeting and a decision on continuing with the present system EPS as CM and OPS as Party head) was likely to be taken to put at rest any speculations on the CM candidate issue.
The meeting is also likely to take a call on forming a 11-member steering committee to guide the party, a demand made by Panneerselvam, at the time of the merger of the two warring factions in August 2017, and agreed upon by Palaniswami.
The issue figured at the recent High level committee of the party and Palaniswami was said to have told Panneerselvam that it was not feasible now.
Another issue which was expected to be debated was reviving the post of General Secretary, which was abolished after the death of Party Supremo J Jayalalithaa.
Considering the age factor of Party presidium chairman E Madhusudhanan, who would be convening the meeting today, rumours were rife in media circles that a decision on replacing him with Palaniswami and making Panneerselvam as the general secretary. But there was no official word from the party in this regard.
The meeting was also convened amid reports that ousted interim general secretary V K Sasikala, who was serving a four year jail term in connection with the DA case, was expected to be released from Bengalurur prison early next year.
However, party sources termed it as a non-issue and that her release from prison would not create any ripples in the AIADMK as she was already ousted from the party.
Apart from the strategy to be adopted for the Assembly elections, including strengthening the booth committees, the meeting was expected to send out a strong message to the AIADMK cadres on the need to stay united, work hard for the party to retain power for a third successive term in the polls and defeat the Opposition campaign claiming differences on the dual leadership issue.
The meeting was also likely to discuss the alliance strategy in the wake of BJP’s new entrant and former DMK leader V P Duraisamy saying that BJP would lead the alliance in the State and Party State Unit chief L Murugan asserting that the ties with the AIADMK remained intact and would continue in the elections.
Resolutions hailing the government for the pro-active measures taken to control the spread of Covid-19, the Farm bills passed in Parliament, the National Education Policy-2020 were also likely to be adopted at the meeting.