AIADMK rules out inducting Panneerselvam, Sasikala

Chennai : A day after the Supreme Court upheld the position of K. Palaniswami as the leader of AIADMK, the party’s Organising Secretary D. Jayakumar on Friday that the AIADMK will welcome anyone other than deposed coordinator O. Panneerselvam, former interim General Secretary V.K. Sasikala and AMMK General Secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran.

Jayakumar told reporters at the party headquarters here that apart from these three persons, no one is the AIADMK’s adversary.

The Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed a Madras High Court order upholding the conduct of a special General Council meeting in July 2022 that chose Palaniswami as interim General Secretary. The meeting had also expelled Pannerselvam from the party.

Jayakumar alleged that Panneerselvam had been functioning as part of the “B Team” of the ruling DMK. He said that all workers have taken a clear stand that Panneerselvam could not be admitted again into the party.

On the rival camp’s observation that as per the records of the Election Commission, Panneerselvam remained the AIADMK coordinator, Jayakumar said that a party delegation led by Rajya Sabha member Shanmugam would submit a copy of the Supreme Court judgment in the AIADMK case to the EC, after which the poll panel would conduct itself as per the court’s ruling.

To another query, he said that a letter had already been given to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla stating that MP P. Ravindharnath had nothing to do with the party. He said another letter would be submitted to the Speaker, reiterating the party position.

Meanwhile, Palaniswami inaugurated 75th birth anniversary of former Chief Minister Jayalalitha at AIADMK headquarters. He cut a 75 kg cake to mark the celebrations.

The former Chief Minister also hoisted the party flag and paid floral tributes to the statues of party founder M.G. Ramachandran and Jayalalitha.

Reacting to the Supreme Court order, Palaniswami had said on Thursday that it has injected life to 1.50 crore cadres of AIADMK. He had declared that AIADMK is now a united party.

The leader of opposition said the Supreme Court judgment ripped apart the facemask of the party’s betrayers, who were functioning as “B Team” of the DMK.