CHENNAI : On a day of heavyweight ghar wapsi, the AIADMK parliamentary board was expanded as a nine-member body on Monday with the addition of four new members, altering the power ratio between Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam on the board from 3:2 to 6:3.
Three Rajya Sabha members of the party — A Navaneethakrishnan, N Gokulakrishnan and Vijila Sathyanand — who were staunch loyalists of jailed V K Sasikala, called on the CM and reportedly conveyed their support.
The formula to expand the parliament board was arrived at during a high-level meeting attended by the party’s district secretaries and headquarters functionaries. Though there were some initial differences, they were sorted out later. Party sources said there were some verbal exchanges among the functionaries at the meeting.
Originally, the board comprised seven members including late CM J Jayalalithaa, who headed it, and Visalakshi Nedunchezhiyan, a member. Other members were O Panneerselvam, E Madhusudhanan, Justice Selvaraj, Dr P Venugopal and A Thamizhmagan Hussain. On Monday, the vacancies left by the death of Jayalalithaa and Visalakshi were filled and two members added to the board. The newly-appointed members are Palaniswami, deputy coordinators R Vaithilingam and K P Munusamy and literary wing secretary B Valarmathi.