CHENNAI:The biggest political message that came out of the AIADMK general council meeting on Tuesday was the purge of the V K Sasikala clan.
Appointed eight-and-a-half months ago as the interim general secretary by the general council of the AIADMK, she was removed from the post on Tuesday, again unanimously, by the same council.
All decisions taken by her were invalidated, including the appointment of nephew T T V Dhinakaran as deputy general secretary. All party-level shuffling done by Dhinakaran in recent weeks also stood cancelled.
The post of general secretary was scrapped by a resolution in reverence to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. It then accorded all powers vested with the general secretary to Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam — convenor of the 11-member coordination committee — and Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K Palaniswami — the joint convenor. In all, 12 resolutions were adopted.
The EPS-OPS team seemed to have won the first round of the turf war. “As many as 2,130 members, who constitute 98 per cent, attended today’s meeting,” Palaniswami said with a sense of pride while addressing the gathering.Tuesday’s meeting and the resolutions indeed marked the dawn of a new era in the history of the party. It formalised the collective leadership of what was a monolithic party till the two factions merged on August 22.
As expected, the ouster of Sasikala was accomplished without explicitly saying she has been sacked. The resolution was also silent on whether she continues to be a primary member of the party, a point that could be debated in the coming days. Besides, no reason was attributed in the resolution for scrapping her appointment. However, the political objective of addressing Panneerselvam’s demand of ousting the clan from the party was fully met.
The resolution adopted in this regard simply said: “After the demise of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on December 5 last, V K Sasikala was appointed as interim general secretary on December 29 to look after the routine affairs of the party. Now, her appointment is cancelled and the shuffles carried out by her in the party between the period of December 30 and February 15 are declared invalid.” Another resolution said the shuffles made by TTV Dhinakaran with a view to ‘destabilise’ the party as well as to create confusion would also be invalid.
The GC meeting also approved the continuation of all office bearers appointed by Jayalalithaa and those elected through the organisational elections during her tenure as general secretary, which ensured the functioning of E Madhusudanan as the party’s presidium chairman and O Panneerselvam as treasurer.
Panel to take call on going to EC
There was some debate on implementing the resolutions in view of a case pending before the Madras HC, which has been put off till Oct 23. According to a well-placed leader, “since the court had not stayed the GC, there is no bar on implementing the resolutions. We can submit the resolutions before the EC at any time to retrieve the Two Leaves symbol. But the Coordination Committee has to take the final call”
History revisited
The post of general secretary, created by founder MGR on the lines of his mentor C N Annadurai, in reverence to his mentor Periyar E V Ramaswamy passed into history on Tuesday
Jaya is general secretary forever
The resolution for scrapping the post of general secretary said Jayalalithaa was adorned as the party’s permanent general secretary and since no one could fill up the void created by her demise, in deference to the late leader, the post was scrapped
GC picks convenor, joint convenor
The posts of convener and joint convenor have been created in lieu of the general secretary post. The party’s primary members had elected the general secretary, but the convener and joint convenor must be elected only by general council members