It was 1977. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which had broken away from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1972, was getting ready for its first general elections under its founder, actor-politician M.G. Ramachandran. “You can erase one Ramachandran from Tamil Nadu politics, but a 1,000 more will emerge,” MGR, as Ramachandran is popularly known, had then told the roaring crowd at a rally in Madurai.
On June 23, those who witnessed the chaotic AIADMK general council meeting, might be wishing that at least one of those 1,000 MGRs emerges soon. The party is turning 50 this year. But, the mood is not festive as it is facing a ‘mid-life crisis’ and is without a charismatic leader to take it forward.
Former chief ministers O. Panneerselvam, 71, and Edappadi K. Palaniswami, 68, are now in an open tussle for the leadership of the party. Panneerselvam wants the existing dual leadership to continue, while Palaniswami wants to be the outright leader. “Both Palaniswami and Panneerselvam claim to be the leaders, but lack any skills,” said Durai Karuna, a Dravidian movement researcher and political analyst. “They are not capable of leading like MGR or J. Jayalalithaa.”
The internal conflict seemed to begin in the first week of June when a poster was put up opposite Panneerselvam’s house in Theni. The poster called for unitary leadership under Palaniswami, who reacted to it from his hometown, Salem, saying: “Everything is fine now. Why should the AIADMK be a single-leader party?” But, within days, as the party’s district secretaries and officeholders met at the headquarters in Chennai, voices supporting Palaniswami to be the sole leader emerged.
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