Chennai: Six years ago, on 7 February 2017 around 9 pm, the Marina beach in Chennai, the world’s second-longest beach, became a political arena. The then outgoing Chief Minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader, O. Panneerselvam (OPS), had reached the memorial of former CM and party chief J. Jayalalithaa, at the beach. For the next 40 minutes, OPS sat in a silent meditation there, leaving cadres, political leaders and the people of the state eager to know the reason behind the sudden visit.
Only two days earlier, OPS and his council of ministers had tendered their resignations, after V.K. Sasikala — a close aide of Jayalalithaa for half a century — was made the general secretary of the party and also proposed as AIADMK’s chief ministerial face.
His resignation was accepted by then Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao on 6 February.
OPS’s silent meditation then had kickstarted his Dharmayudham (war of principles) against Sasikala and her family.
OPS had called his protest a success after Sasikala was ousted from the party and joined hands with current AIADMK chief Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS).
Cut to 2023, after being disgracefully and unceremoniously removed from the party in 2022 by an EPS-led faction, OPS has yet again embarked on a Dharmayudham — a Dharmayudham 2.0 — this time against EPS, for which he joined forces with Sasikala’s nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran earlier this month.
Dhinakaran founded the Amma Makkal Munneetra Kazagam (AMMK) after being expelled from the AIADMK in 2017.
OPS Monday shook hands with Dhinakaran and announced the beginning of a “working relationship” for two purposes — to defeat the “evil force” Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), currently in power in the state, and to recoup the AIADMK from the hands of the “betrayers”.
Calling the move “an act of necessity”, political analysts ThePrint spoke to said there are no permanent enemies in politics.
“In politics, the past does not define relationships, necessity makes the decision”, political analyst Priyan (who goes by his first name only) told ThePrint.
According to political analyst Sumanth C. Raman, OPS currently has no “big friends” or takers.
“OPS joining hands with TTV and his likely meeting Sasikala in the near future are all attempts to tie up with people who have a common enemy,” Raman told ThePrint, adding that the common enemy here is EPS.
The ‘Dharmayudham 2.0’
In the previous Dharmayudham, the OPS-Sasikala face-off was short-spanned. Sasikala had been sentenced to four years in prison in a disproportionate assets case by the Supreme Court, which had upheld a 2014-trial court order against her. On 15 February, just eight days after OPS’ meditation, Sasikala surrendered before the jail authorities. The following day EPS was sworn in as the Chief Minister of the state.
The power struggle between EPS and OPS was evident from the time they came together in August 2017, according to political observers.
While EPS continued as the CM and OPS was made the deputy CM, in the party, OPS became the party coordinator and EPS the joint coordinator.
Things went downhill when EPS started consolidating support within the party and OPS started getting sidelined as the party once again tried moving from the system of dual leadership to having a single leader.
In June last year, senior party leader C. V. Shanmugam had said that since the AIADMK’s general council did not table the resolution with regard to the December 2021 election of OPS and EPS as coordinator and co-coordinator, the dual leadership ceased to exist.
OPS ultimately tried legal recourse, but the Supreme Court in its verdict announced in February this year allowed EPS to remain general secretary of the party, while the Election Commission, too has recognised him as such. In March this year, EPS was declared party general secretary.
Meanwhile, OPS’s legal battle calling the general council meeting invalid is still underway.
While OPS and Dhinakaran had addressed EPS and his supporters as betrayers, EPS reacting to the OPS-T.T.V. reunion Thursday said the “two betrayers have joined hands”.
Speaking to the media in Salem, EPS said, “It is like a mud horse joining hands with Maayaman [a magical deer chased by Lord Rama in the Ramayana]. Zero plus zero is equal to zero. Both OPS and TTV have called each other a betrayer in the past. Now, the two betrayers have joined hands.”
Meanwhile, former AIADMK MP from Chennai south, Dr J. Jayavardhan speaking to ThePrint said, OPS joining hands with TTV was in complete contradiction to his earlier stand ‘and Dharmayudham could only be for “selfish motto”. “But for us, this move makes no difference.”
He also alleged that OPS and TTV have been acting like the B-team of the DMK, and have been “working at the DMK’s behest”.
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Caste-based party
Though AIADMK leaders claim that the party is not caste-based, political analysts in the state say that the majority of the party’s vote share is based on caste.
The Kongu belt that covers nine districts — Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Salem, Namakkal, Karur and Dindigul — has been a stronghold of EPS, who belongs to the Gounder community from Salem, which is the prominent vote bank in the region.
But in a few places in the delta districts, like Tanjore, Nagapattinam Myladudurai, and in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, both OPS and TTV have clout over the Mukkulathor or Thevar vote bank — a community they both represent.
According to Raman, the Mukkulathor vote bank can affect 25-30 state assembly seats and close to five parliamentary seats.
The Mukkulathor community, which is an important vote bank for the AIADMK, has been “angry” with the EPS faction, said analysts.
“They are angry about how Sasikala and OPS were sidelined and later removed from the party. Also, the 10.5 per cent reservation that was passed by the previous AIADMK government for the Vanniyar community has made the Mukkulathors feel betrayed by EPS, who was the CM at that time,” said Priyan.
In 2021, just 30 minutes before the Election Commission announced the TN assembly election dates, the then AIADMK government unanimously passed a bill providing 10.5 per cent reservation to Vanniyars, within the Most Backward Classes (MBC) community, in government jobs and admissions to educational institutions.
This was seen as a move by the AIADMK to woo the Vanniyar-based party, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), onto its side. This reservation was later struck down by both the Madras High Court and the Supreme Court.
This internal reservation for the Vanniyars did create a setback for the AIADMK in southern Tamil Nadu where the Thevar community is dominant. In the 2021 assembly polls, of the 60 seats it contested in the region, the AIADMK could only win 16.
Meanwhile, in the Gounder-dominated Kongu belt, of the 54 seats that the AIADMK contested, it won 32.
According to Priyan, the majority of the Mukkulathor community has been wanting the unification of OPS, Sasikala and TTV, and has been feeling that the Gounders were getting more prominence in the party, as many from the community started to gain prominence and key positions in the EPS-led AIADMK party.
“Even if TTV and OPS faction doesn’t win any seats, they will still be able to play spoilsport for the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the upcoming elections,” said Priyan.
‘OPS and TTV combination need for AIADMK’
Meanwhile, Dhinakaran’s AMMK had received 5.27 per cent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which dropped to 2.35 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls in the state.
Even though AMMK has no prominent foothold in the state and is not a pan Tamil Nadu party, in the few places where there is support for it, the party poaches into traditional AIADMK votes, analysts explained.
For example, Dhinakaran, who after Jayalalithaa’s demise in 2016, had contested the 2017 bypoll as an independent candidate from her R.K. Nagar constituency, after being ousted from the AIADMK, won with a huge margin of 40,707 votes, defeating the AIADMK and the DMK candidates. The R.K. Nagar constituency is considered a traditional AIADMK stronghold.
“TTV has a very affable personality; he is quite an even-tempered person. The only thing is he hasn’t played his cards right,” said Raman.
According to political analysts, Tamil Nadu politics, which was once focused on stalwarts, is now slowly drifting towards caste-based voting patterns.
Even though the AIADMK had dominated the west and south Tamil Nadu, which are mostly dominated by Gounders and Thevars, in the 2021 assembly polls, the Vanniyars, Thevars and Gounders occupied 43 per cent of the total assembly seats.
Speaking to ThePrint, OPS supporter and former AIADMK MLA J.C.D Prabhakar said, “Without the combination of OPS and TTV, the AIADMK cannot win any elections in the future in Tamil Nadu.”
Agreeing that the divide in the party will lead to a “split in the AIADMK votes”, Prabhakar added, “If our leaders M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) and Jayalalithaa would have been alive, they would not have liked what is happening in the party and the way EPS is behaving.”
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‘BJP will want a united AIADMK’
The AIADMK, which had contested 179 of the 234 assembly seats in the 2021 assembly polls, won 66 and received 33.29 per cent votes.
In the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, the party won only one seat, Theni, which was contested by OPS’s son, O.P. Ravindranath.
The party also garnered a low vote share of 18.8 per cent against the 44.3 per cent it received in 2014. The reason for the plunge in the vote share, according to experts, was that AMMK, which received 5.25 per cent votes, was poaching into AIADMK votes.
According to political analysts, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is trying to make inroads into the state based on an alliance with the AIADMK, will want the party united under the two leaves symbol.
Though the BJP has been stating that it will not interfere in the AIADMK’s internal affairs, a senior party functionary on conditions of anonymity told ThePrint, that the BJP high command has been insisting on a united AIADMK front.
“If EPS’ AIADMK stands alone, the anti-DMK vote will see a split and the BJP has realised this. So the party wants to unite AIADMK under the two leaves symbol,” said Priyan.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)