Faction fight begins in AIADMK after stunning defeat


Victory has many father, but failure is an orphan, so goes the adage. This is now in abundant display in Tamil Nadu. AIADMK, which lost power after a ten-year-stint, is already in disarray. The factionalism has raised its ugly head and the party MLAs are divided on factional lines. Many AIADMK leaders are criticising the leaders for the debacle.

The party already has two major factions – one lead by former CM Edappadi Ramamurthy and the other led by O Paneerselvam. A third insignificant faction is still loyal to Sasikala Natarajan. On Friday, the party’s victorious MLAs met at the party headquarters in Adayar. The meeting turned out to be a stormy one. There were cold vibes even in the core committee meeting, which was attended by EPS, OPS, Sengottian, Munuswamy, Dindigal Srinivasan and D Jayakumar.

When the meeting began, the leaders and elected MLAs blamed one another for the party’s debacle. Though the core committee met for over two hours, they could not arrive at a conclusion as to who would be the leader of the opposition and what should be the line to be adopted in the Tamil Nadu assembly. The party also could not arrive at any decision on how to deal with the Trozan Horses. As a result, the MLA’s meet was delayed by over two hours. Even at the MLA’s meet, there were sloganeering and heated arguments.

The AIADMK leaders and the MLAs would meet again on Monday to decide on the legislative party leader.