Over the past few days, speculations were doing the rounds about who will be the AIADMK’s face for the next polls and about the party’s alliance.
It all started when Minister for Cooperation Sellur K. Raju said that if the party comes back to power in 2021, the Chief Minister would be chosen by elected MLAs.
Later, Minister of Dairy and Development Rajenthra Balaji emphatically declared on his Twitter page that the AIADMK would go to polls with Edappadi K. Palaniswami as the CM candidate.
This had led to a lot of rumours about different camps existing in the party – one that wants EPS as CM, one that wants OPS as CM and another procrastinating group.
Earlier today, some of the party functionaries and Ministers visited Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam (OPS) at his residence. The meeting spanned over 2 hours.
Later, TN Ministers met CM Palaniswami.
Following this, a joint statement was issued by the two leaders to put an end to the controversy over the party’s CM candidate for 2021 polls and other matters.
The statement issued by Party Coordinator Panneerselvam and Party Joint Coordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami asked leaders to not air their personal opinion and warned of strict action for those disobeying the party conduct.
It said that the party would take all policy decisions including matters of alliance in a democratic manner keeping in mind their sentiments.
With this, the party leadership has put an end to speculations for now by putting a united front.