Chennai: All eyes are on the AIADMK as the ruling party is set to announce its Chief Minister candidate for the 2021 Assembly elections tomorrow with last minute discussions being held today.
Senior members of the party including several Ministers met Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who are also the joint coordinator and coordinator of the party respectively, separately and discussed about tomorrow’s announcement.
Ministers D Jayakumar, S P Velumani, P Thangamani and R B Udhayakumar met Palaniswami first and later met Panneerselvam and held discussions. Udhayakumar had already met Panneerselvam on Sunday. Government Whip S Rajendran also met Palaniswami at his residence today.
OPS supporters K P Munusamy and Manoj Pandiyan were also present at Panneerselvam’s residence earlier in the day and held discussions. Sources said that the candidate announcement will be made at 10.56 am tomorrow as per the plan. Both Panneerselvam and Palaniswami will make the announcement together. It is said that Palaniswami is likely to be announced as the Chief Minister candidate again.
The announcement about the forming of a steering committee of the party is also expected to be made.
Panneerselvam reached Chennai from his native Periyakulam last night. Panneerselvam, who had thrice served as the CM, in a tweet on Monday said till now all the decisions he had taken was keeping in mind the interests of the people of Tamilnadu and the AIADMK cadres.
“It will continue to remain so hereafter,” he said, dropping indications that the open face off he had with Palaniswami on the CM nominee for the Assembly polls in the last week’s executive committee, has been settled.
Quoting Lord Krishna’s versus in Bhagwad Gita, he said, “whatever happened has happened well. Whatever is happening it is happening well. Whatever will happen will also happen well,” he said, in a virtual climbdown from his hardened stance that he was running for the post of Chief Minister in the elections.
Panneerselvam’s announcement comes in the backdrop of hectic parleys in both the camps over the last couple of days, with senior Ministers being closetted with Palaniswami and the loyalists of the Deputy CM holding discussions with him in his native Theni district.
After the heated arguments both the leaders had on the issue of the Chief Minister candidate at the Executive meeting, which lasted close to five hours last week, Palaniswami, Panneerselvam, Deputy Coordinator K P Munusamy and senior Ministers jointly held crucial discussions.
The meeting witnessed considerable debate with a section of the Ministers wanted to make an announcement to put at rest the debate on the CM candidate issue.
Emerging out after the meeting, Munusamy said a decision on the Chief Minister candidate would be announced on 7 October jointly by Palaniswami and Paneerselvam.