AIADMK’s CV Shanmugam Faction Announces Support To TVK

Chennai: A faction of the AIADMK – led by SP Velumani and CV Shanmugam extended support Tuesday to Tamil Nadu’s ruling coalition headed by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. The faction leaders plan to meet Vijay later today.

Shanmugam pointed to electoral defeats suffered by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam over the past decade – three at the hands of arch-rivals Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and a fourth, last month, inflicted by the TVK – as motivation.

“We need to revive the party… discuss its future,…we urge General Secretary (AIADMK boss and ex-chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami) to convene the council” he said, also calling out the party for having considered an alliance with the DMK.

An AIADMK-DMK tie-up would have been politically unprecedented; it would have up-ended decades of fierce, sometimes violent, rivalry. Nevertheless, it was reporedly considered by some last week to stop Vijay and the TVK from ruling the state.

A ‘for 53 years…’ reminder to EPS

“We founded this party against the DMK. For 53 years, our politics was against it. Given this, a proposal suggesting an AIADMK government with DMK support was rejected….If we formed such an alliance, AIADMK would not exist,” he explained.

Shanmugam also said he had no intention of splitting the AIADMK, which sets up a dramatic battle with its core leadership – specifically EPS, as Palaniswami is called – who had earlier refused the rebel faction’s call to ally with Vijay and the TVK.

“We stand without any alliance after elections… our focus must be on revitalising and strengthening our party. AIADMK MLA-elects decided to extend our support to the TVK, which emerged victorious.”

He also said the alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party – revived by EPS last year to restore fortunes – is over. That is critical because it removes Vijay’s key objection to allying with the AIADMK – that it is allied with his ‘ideological enemy’, the BJP. Shanmugam further said AIADMK MLA-elects had adopted a resolution that “favoured support to the TVK”.