On September 8, the AIADMK’s former School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan, who last week set a 10-day-long deadline for the party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami to resolve the issue of re-admitting to the organisation all those who had left the party, met Union Ministers Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. According to Mr. Sengottaiyan, he discussed, among others, the unification of different factions of the AIADMK. This was not for the first time that the BJP had evinced interest in setting the AIADMK house in order. Former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, who led a revolt against the party’s former interim general secretary V.K. Sasikala in February 2017, had publicly stated many times that it was on the advice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he had merged his faction with what was headed by the then Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in August that year. T. Ramakrishnan discusses the BJP’s role in AIADMK’s internal affairs with Panruti S. Ramachandran and Dr. R. Kannan. Panruti S. Ramachandran is is a seven-time legislator, and a former Minister in the Cabinets led by M. Karunanidhi (DMK) and M.G. Ramachandran (AIADMK). He is the political affairs adviser to the group headed by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam. R. Kannan is a former diplomat with the United Nations who has authored books on C.N. Annadurai and MGR, besides the DMK. Excerpts: TRK: Why is it that the intra-party tussle in the AIADMK seems like an unending affair? Panruti S. Ramachandran: The problem in the AIADMK is the leadership. Unfortunately, there is no all-embracing leadership at present. That is why the internal conflict is raging on. That problem affects the party organisation also. In fact, the rank and file does not know what to do due to this leadership problem. In the past, both M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) and J. Jayalalithaa had commanding leadership. And the organisation was also built around their personality. In the absence of such a personality now, the AIADMK is facing this internal crisis. I don’t think it can be easily resolved now.R. Kannan: I don’t think it is an unending affair. I think the question has been very convincingly settled. There is no dispute that Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) is the undisputed leader of the AIADMK. The tussle that is happening now is for those who have been thrown out of the party through EPS’s machinations – there should be room for them. This is a party they all built together and they’re out in the cold now. And so this is not just a tussle for leadership, as we seem to think. Even for someone like Jayalalithaa, whom I consider a political colossus, it had taken a couple of years and an election and public and cadre support to become the undisputed leader (in the late 1980s). EPS is a man of modest origins – a jaggery vendor who has risen up the ranks to the spot he is now. Actually, it’s amazing that he kept his job as the chief minister for four years and two months. In the previous round, intra-party rivalry between O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K. Palaniswami was seen as a clash of two dominant OBC communities forming support bases of the party. But with the entry of Mr. K.A. Sengottaiyan to the rebel ranks and who belongs to the community to which EPS hails from, does this suggest another round of intra-party intrigue or is this also a consequence of external meddling which does not necessarily mean only the BJP? P.S.R.: As I said earlier, in the absence of an all-embracing leadership, the present leaders command only caste loyalties. So, whenever a crisis beckons to them, naturally their caste-based support base comes to their rescue. So, with Mr. Palaniswami in a commanding position, he is currently supported by Kongu Vellalars. And the Mukkulathors in the southern districts perceive that OPS (former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam) and others, besides their lieutenants who are in AIADMK, all throughout, were ill-treated by the dominant Palaniswami group. Therefore, a kind of divisional loyalty has taken over the AIADMK.As regards Mr. Sengottaiyan’s initiative, I do not think this will change the field or the contest much. The BJP’s position, I think, is perhaps that they know pretty well that the AIADMK is disintegrating. So, they want to cash in on the anti-DMK votes, which so far have been garnered by the AIADMK.R.K.: There is undoubtedly some external meddling. The BJP has no business whatsoever to meet with Mr. Sengottaiyan, who has been stirring the pot, even for the right reasons. But now it’s out in the open.As regards the AIADMK’s community divide, I think it is more of a media projection. Because if you look at EPS’s team; his deputy in the assembly is R.B. Udayakumar, who belongs to the Mukkulathor community. The party treasurer is Dindigul C. Sreenivasan, who is also from the same community. EPS has surrounded himself with a number of Mukkulathor leaders. The only difficulty is, there are only two Mukkulathor leaders who seem to enjoy a special status in the post-Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar era – Sasikala Natarajan and OPS. Now they are out in the cold, and the community had looked up to them. What does the BJP stand to gain this time by intervening in the internal affairs of the AIADMK, given the fact that its previous attempt of uniting the factions of EPS and OPS did not give a durable solution? P.S.R.: It is a futile attempt by the BJP. The party’s former State president, K. Annamalai, had a strategy here in Tamil Nadu, knowing pretty well that the AIADMK supporters may not fully support BJP in future. He chalked out his own strategy to build an alternative to both the DMK and AIADMK. And it was a long-term one similar to what the party did in Odisha. There, the BJP worked to remove the Biju Janata Dal from power over a long period. And the plan did work, even if it took a long time. But, perhaps the Delhi leadership of the BJP feels that the absence of any seats for the party in Tamil Nadu is a disadvantage for the party at the Centre. This is why they removed Mr. Annamalai from his position to pacify EPS. The compromise now is to use a tactic of pacification in order to corner the voter base of the AIADMK. But this attempt will be a failure, in my opinionR.K.: I think the BJP is playing this game extremely incorrectly and in a short-sighted fashion. Firstly, the initial attempt at rapprochement between the EPS and the OPS factions was to keep Sasikala Natarajan out of the game. The idea was to install a pliant government with not-so-tainted leaders at the helm. It was a BJP government by proxy, according to its detractors, especially the DMK.Today’s meddling is related to the upcoming Assembly polls in 2026 where the BJP seeks a united AIADMK to take the battle to the ruling DMK. The BJP also has a longer-term vision which is to cannibalise the AIADMK and its support base at some point in the future, once the current regime in Tamil Nadu is out of power. Do you see any substance in the charge against BJP that as the national party, as it did elsewhere, is out to weaken systematically its own ally, the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu too? P.S.R.: Yes, that’s correct. Both national parties, the Congress and the BJP, have tried to form their own governments in Tamil Nadu. In 1989, the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made several visits to Tamil Nadu during the elections and yet the Congress could not make it to the top. The BJP is trying the same thing now. This wouldn’t work as there is little purchase for national parties, even if they are ruling in Delhi, here in Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately, despite this, there has been a wrong perception among the BJP that it can rule Tamil Nadu by controlling it from Delhi.R.K.: The BJP seems to be asking EPS for its pound of flesh for having kept him in power for four years and two months. EPS on the other hand should be thinking why the BJP is meeting up with an AIADMK dissident openly; would this have happened under Jayalalithaa’s or MGR’s rule? I do not think that the BJP is a well-wisher of the AIADMK. They are quite parasitic in their approach and the AIADMK has become a willing host. Would people of the State be willing to give lasting support to a party that is perceived to be growing or to have grown at the cost of another? P.S.R.: In Tamil Nadu, voters do not bind themselves to any particular organisation forever and so a party exploiting the support base of another is impracticable. Parties gain strength only when a new generation of voters or a new cohort supports them. The DMK was founded by C. N. Annadurai and then made popular by M. Karunanidhi, but its base belonged to a particular generation. When MGR was removed by the DMK, he didn’t carry support away from the DMK as much as he got the support of the next generation. This tells you that one party cannot grow at the expense of another by taking over the latter’s base alone.R.K.: This is a crystal ball question. People’s memory is short-lived and so they could be condoning parties who could earn their support. Public support is the only yardstick by which a party can be judged and the BJP’s chances will depend upon opinion about how they have governed in other States as well.As for the AIADMK, it does not, unfortunately, have a leader of the stature of Jayalalithaa after her death. EPS seems to think that he has successfully replaced her, but that is folly. His predecessors were colossuses. He is just a man who reached his position through serendipity.Published - September 12, 2025 12:38 am IST