Edappadi K Palaniswami is a lone fighter. Away from the electoral battles he once fought with a row of luminaries and legions of animated cadres in tow, the general secretary of AIADMK found himself forlorn, unkindly thrown to the Lok Sabha battlefield to fight a seemingly lost battle.
The party which banked on charismatic leaders like MG Ramachandran (MGR) and J Jayalalithaa, who captained the ship with the mass support of both party cadres and the general public, was going rudderless after Lok Sabha elections were announced. The court battles he fought to retain his supremacy and party symbols also dragged on, creating a sharp void in the opposition space. Born to Karuppa Goundar and Thavasiyammal at Siluvampalayam at Edappadi in Salem on May 12, 1954, EPS’s political graph always had many ups and downs. And, he is facing the 2024 Lok Sabha election after two successive defeats. In the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly election, AIADMK under the twin leadership of EPS and O Panneerselvam contested 179 seats but managed to win only 66 seats, 70 less than the 136 seats the party had won in 2016 under the leadership of former CM J Jayalalithaa.
Out of the 66 seats AIADMK won in 2021, a major chunk of 35 seats were from western TN, the party’s fortress. The very next year in 2022, AIADMK was decimated by the ruling DMK in the local body elections losing all the corporations. This election season was also not a cakewalk for him. After snapping ties with the BJP in September last year, Palaniswami was trying hard to break the formidable DMK-led alliance and woo VCK into its fold, which did not materialise. Then he tried hard to forge an alliance with the PMK, with AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP CV Shanmugam meeting PMK founder S Ramadoss. To his shock, PMK decided to join the NDA alliance led by BJP.
Lefty with just a few options, Palaniswami signed an alliance with DMDK offering five seats to them and decided to contest the remaining 34 seats in the ‘Two Leaves’ symbol, which included one seat each for Puthiya Tamilagam and SDPI parties which are contesting on AIADMK symbol. Adding fuel to the fire, EPS’s political rivals came with an array of leaders to spearhead their campaign. While the BJP-led alliance lined up all their top stars, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and president JP Nadda to several cabinet ministers, the DMK-led alliance had Chief Minister MK Stalin and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and several other alliance party leaders to boot.
EPS was left with no other option except shouldering the lion’s share of the campaigning responsibility on his shoulder. However, as the days progressed, Tamil Nadu saw him drawing masses through his campaigns. Unlike the 2021 assembly polls, where he used a campaign vehicle to address the public, this time, EPS was holding public meetings in each constituency.
Furthermore, AIADMK’s poll strategists were designed to energise the cadres. EPS played old videos of DMK leaders, including CM MK Stalin, in support of his criticism. He even snapped back at Udayanidhi Stalin’s mockery using a picture of him with PM Modi, in the same class; with a photograph of Udayanidhi meeting the PM. Anbumani Ramadoss also tasted his lash, when EPS shot back to his lambasts with the question, “Then why PMK forged an alliance with AIADMK earlier?” During the last leg of his campaign, he came out strongly against the BJP saying, “Now out of the NDA alliance, AIADMK MPs will stand up for the state’s rights in Parliament.”
“EPS embraced all cadres, both old and young. He wanted to take the party to new heights. Coming from the grassroots level without any mass appeal, he emerged as the general secretary of AIADMK through his hard work, which earned him the acceptance of the public. He faced the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly election as a Chief Ministerial candidate and managed to get a maximum number of seats for AIADMK as an opposition party,” asserted AIADMK IT wing president Singai G Ramachandran. Palaniswami’s roommate during college days at Sri Vasavi College in Erode, R Mathivathanan was all praise for his down-to-earth approach.
“Even after holding the Chief Minister’s post and becoming general secretary of AIADMK, Palaniswami was approachable for all, something that can’t be found in leaders of other political parties.” Recalling the old days, Mathivathanan added, “Palaniswami used to come to the college by bike and was an MGR fan. We met through his uncle, became friends, rented a house and stayed together for two years. He was a teetotaller and was always focused on his studies and his family business of jaggery. He used to sell the jaggery collected from the farmers at the Kavindapadi or Perundurai market.”
Though he is well celebrated in his quarters and AIADMK expresses confidence in his leadership, political analyst Raveendran Duraisamy is of the view that DMK president MK Stalin has an upper hand in the election with the alliance of Congress, VCK, CPM, CPI and MDMK. “Not just in this election, but also in the future, it will be difficult for Palaniswami to forge a political realignment and form a strong alliance in Tamil Nadu. That is the reality. Down the lane, Palaniswami will be a decisive leader, but cannot replace Jayalalithaa in terms of forging a strong alliance. He will be a force like HD Deva Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), which gets a 20% vote share in Karnataka,” he added.
“In this election, Pramalatha Vijayakanth helped AIAD MK to some extent in getting sympathy votes from the Telugu-speaking community. Palaniswami borrowed facts from NTK leader Seeman for the campaigning. We need to wait and see who converted it into votes.” But one can’t ignore the fact that whenever EPS was pushed to the bottom in the past, he had managed to rise like a phoenix. Will he weather the current storm or be left by the wayside? June 4 holds the key.