AIADMK MLA flays dual leadership, says there should be one chief

After Tamil Nadu bagged nine of the 22 Assembly seats in the recent by-elections, Madurai North MLA Rajan Chellappa’s statement about the AIADMK’s poll performance has triggered a controversy.

Apparently, Chellappa, the former mayor of Madurai, said that the AIADMK needs a single leader to head the party. He said that the party being led by two leaders, Edappadi K Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam, creates confusion over who holds the final authority. O Panneerselvam refused to comment saying he would look at the entire statement of Chellappa and then react.

Further, Chellappa raised questions as to why the nine MLAs who won the Assembly seats have failed to visit former chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s Memorial after the AIADMK suffered a massive defeat in the elections. “Who stopped them,” he asked.

“The ministers would have been changed around 10 times under late Jayalalithaa’s cabinet,” he says.

AIADMK was divided into three factions earlier, led by the now Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Paneerselvam and Jayalalithaa’s former aide V K Sasikala’s nephew TTV Dhinakaran. TTV formed his own breakaway group and since then the EPS-OPS duo have shared power.