Chennai: In the highly complicated political situation that Tamil Nadu has landed in now following the State elections throwing up a hung Assembly, AIADMK general secretary and former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami is speculated to helm the next government as the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) that has emerged as the single largest party has failed in its repeated attempts to form the government.
Emerging out a meeting of AIADMK leaders at the residence of Palaniswami on Friday, senior honcho and MP Thambi Durai told the waiting media that Palaniswami would once again become Chief Minister but refused to elaborate on it, giving the indication that there was a plan brewing to install the AIADMK in power, reportedly with the outside support of the DMK.
While Palaniswami, who called on the group of party MLAs sequestered at a luxury resort in Puducherry on Thursday, also indicated the AIADMK’s return to power by telling the MLAs not to aspire to switch over to the TVK for any gain as posts would come looking for them otherwise.
On Friday, the general secretary of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) T.T.V. Dhinakaran wrote to the Governor extending full support to ‘the claim’ of Palaniswami to form a new government in the State. In the letter, he said S Kamaraj, who had won the election from Mannargudi on a TMMK ticket would back Palaniswami.
These developments, viewed in the backdrop of DMK president M.K. Stalin urging his party leaders to support any decision taken by him, gave credence to the speculation that the DMK and AIADMK were in secret talks to form the government with a view to keeping the TVK at bay.
It is learnt that the DMK would extend support from outside to the AIADMK that had won 47 seats. Since the DMK’s 59 seats and the AIADMK’s 47 would not add up to the requisite majority of 118 seats, both the Dravidian majors might also seek the backing of their small allies. Already the AMMK, an ally of the AIADMK, had pledged its support in the letter to the governor.
Possibly the PMK, having four seats in its kitty, could be invited with an offer for a ministerial berth and the DMK, too, might lure the IUML, VCK and DMDK to support the new arrangement between the DMK and AIADMK.
Fearing that the 5 MLAs of the Congress, who had pledged their support to TVK, could be poached in the process, the Congress shifted all of them to a resort in Hyderabad. Even a large section of the AIADMK MLAs have been kept in the resort in Mahabalipuram only to quell a brewing rebellion in their ranks and could be called t to vote in the House at the the appropriate moment with a view to enabling the new alliance to take shape to prevent the TVK from assuming power.