With the support by 25 rebel AIADMK leaders to the C Joseph Vijay-led coalition government in Tamil Nadu during the floor test Wednesday, the split in the party is formal. However, the worry among some quarters in the ruling TVK is that while on the face of it its government is more secure, the AIADMK faction backing it may owe its loyalty to Delhi, leaving the Vijay ministry vulnerable to pressures.With first-time AIADMK MLA Leema Rose Martin seemingly swinging the MLAs away from Edappadi K Palaniswamy’s leadership, there is also apprehension that the door has been opened for lottery baron Santiago Martin to stretch his influence across the administration. Leema is Santiago’s wife, while their son-in-law Aadhav Arjun is a close Vijay comrade and a minister in the TVK government. According to sources, Leema too may get a place in the Cabinet.AdvertisementThe unexpected development has also reopened nearly every unresolved question in the AIADMK since J Jayalalithaa’s death: over Palaniswami or EPS’s authority, over ally-turned-foe-turned ally BJP’s long shadow over the party, and over whether this means return of the V K Sasikala camp.Few, however, would have expected the shake-up to leave the Martins looming so large over the Tamil Nadu horizon as they do now – and that is not counting the son who is an MLA of the victorious NDA in neighbouring Puducherry. It was Leema who first hinted that AIADMK leaders had opened a channel with the DMK, and it is Leena who is being credited with a behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the movement of AIADMK legislators to the TVK camp – with offers ranging from ministerial berths and board appointments, to allegedly purely financial.The reversal of fortunes of the Martin family could not be more stark, with its members under pressure from Central agencies over their business empire.AdvertisementA top TVK source said the AIADMK rebel faction is seeking up to eight ministerial posts, including two for women, in exchange for its support. “One is for Leema, however insignificant the portfolio,” the TVK leader said.Officially, the rebel AIADMK framed its decision to back the TVK as ideological correction. Former minister C Ve Shanmugham, the faction’s top leader along with with S P Velumani and C Vijayabaskar, mounted a fierce attack on EPS after the Assembly session Wednesday, accusing the ex-CM of lying, “forging” support claims, and secretly negotiating with the DMK to form a government under his own leadership.The EPS camp countered saying he had been unanimously elected the Legislature Party leader and that an official whip had been issued to all 47 AIADMK MLAs to vote against the Vijay government Wednesday.EPS accused the rebel MLAs of changing sides over promises of “six ministerial posts and 10 board chairman posts” by the TVK. “These MLAs won only because of the Two Leaves symbol, MGR and Amma (Jayalalithaa),” EPS said. “They have betrayed the party that gave them identity.” Later in the day, EPS said he was removing the rebel leaders from AIADMK posts.Shanmugham denied there had been any such AIADMK Legislature Party meeting and challenged EPS to publicly release the resolution that declared him the leader of the legislature wing, with the signature of all the party’s 47 MLAs. “When did this meeting happen? Where? What resolution was passed?” Shanmugham said.According to him, the signatures EPS is claiming were collected from MLAs were gathered when they were lodged in a Puducherry resort after the election, and that they were not for electing EPS as the Legislature Party leader but to get their support for a proposal to form an AIADMK government headed by him, supported by the DMK from outside. Shanmugham said that EPS told the MLAs that this plan had been approved by “Delhi”.In the rebel framing, supporting Vijay is not ideological surrender but a lesser humiliation compared to accepting DMK support under EPS. Shanmugham stressed that the AIADMK and TVK shared the same objective during the elections – of defeating the DMK. “If Palaniswami can think about forming a government with DMK support, why can we not support a government led by Vijay?” Shanmugham said.The other big face of the AIADMK rebel faction, Velumani, sought a review of EPS’s leadership, as the party had faced consecutive defeats under him in 2019, 2021 and now 2026.you may likeBlaming EPS for leaders leaving the AIADMK, Velumani also made a public appeal for the return of its expelled leaders, including V K Sasikala, T T V Dhinakaran, O Panneerselvam and others. Having fought his way to the top after Jayalalithaa’s demise, EPS has been the strongest opponent to their re-entry.If the statement made it clear that the roiling within the AIADMK was set to resurface, one of the biggest catalysts for it earlier and set to loom large, is the BJP “hand”. Several AIADMK leaders acknowledged privately that many of the faces now backing Vijay are politically closer to the BJP leadership than EPS. As per them, the rebellion in the AIADMK suits Delhi’s broader strategic interests: weakening EPS’s unquestioned control over the AIADMK, inserting a bloc into the ruling TVK coalition that is much larger than the Congress’s modest 5-MLA presence, and ensuring that any future parliamentary arrangement in Tamil Nadu remains dependent on forces more negotiable than the current AIADMK leadership.In that sense, Tuesday’s events mark the beginning of the long-postponed restructuring of the AIADMK after Jayalalithaa.