Chennai: After protracted parleys over the last couple of days, the ruling AIADMK in Tamilnadu today announced that incumbent Edappadi K Palaniswami will be the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate for the Assembly elections due in April-May 2021.
The party’s CM face for the polls was announed in a joint press conference by AIADMK coordinator and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and joint coordinator and Chief Minister Palaniswami at the party headquarters.
After Palaniswami announced the formation of the 11-member steering committee to guide the party, Panneerselvam formally announced the CM candidate of AIADMK.
He said, “in the 2021 Assembly polls, AIADMK will project Palaniswami as the Chief Minister”, bringing to an end the protracted intra-party tussle on the issue that began on the Independence Day.
Panneerselvam an unanimous resolutios to face the 2021 Assembly polls by projecting Palaniswami as the Chief Minister was taken at the consultative committee headed by AIADMK presidium chairman E Madhusudhanan and attended by both the leaders and Deputy Coordinators and Rajya Sabha members K P Munusamy and R Vaithilingam and the steering committee members.
The announcement was welcomed with bursting of crackers and distributing of sweets by scores of AIADMK cadres, who thronged the party headquarters right from the morning.
Fissures developed within the party with both Paneerselvam, who had been CM for three times, and Palaniswami aspiring for the CM post.
Both the leaders openly sparred at the executive committee meeting of the party last week in which senior Ministers, backed Palaniswami and said the CM nominee should be announced immediately.
After hectic parleys in both the sides, the issue was settled and Panneerselvam was said to have backed out of the CM race and his persistent demand for forming a 11-member steering committee was agreed by Palaniswami and it was announced today.
Among the issues that had engaged the leaders in prolonged discussions were the composition of the proposed steering committee, the need for other committees for purposes like seat-sharing negotiations with prospective electoral partners and election propaganda work, and the possibility of changes in the functions and powers of key functionaries.
Multiple meetings were held since yesterday morning with Ministers shuttling between the residences of both the leaders to iron out last minute glitches.
The separate discussions the Ministers and the senior leaders had with Panneerselvam and Palaniswami stretched well past midnight and ended at 3 am today after which party deputy coordinator and former Minister R Vaithiligam said a good news would be announced at 10 am today.
Sources close to the AIADMK said that the issue has been amicably resolved after extensive and multiple meetings senior leaders separately had with the two leaders.
The bone of contention was the formation of a 11-member steering committee to guide the party, a key demand made by Panneerselvam and agreed upon by Palaniswami when the warring factions merged in August 2017.
Though Palaniswami said it was not feasible now, Panneerselvam seems to have persisted with the issue and it finally agreed by the former.
The main objective of this committee was to guide the party and on how to face the elections in unitedly.
Stressing on the need for unity at this crucial juncture, the sources said the main aim was to face the Assembly polls without any hitch or differences in the party.