Tuesday, July 18, 2023 turned out to be an important day in the political calendar of the AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami with the Madras High Court dismissing a petition against him in an alleged highway tender scam and the BJP according him importance at a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in New Delhi.
Filed by the DMK’s senior leader R.S. Bharathi in 2018, the petition sought a probe by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) into the scam. While dismissing it earlier in the day, the High Court judge, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh, held that he did not find any illegality in the preliminary inquiry of the DVAC that year in which a clean chit was given to Mr Palaniswami.
Later in the day in New Delhi, Mr Palaniswami was not only seated next to BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi but was also one of those who received Mr Modi on his arrival at the venue of the NDA meeting. The AIADMK chief was among the two leaders who seconded a resolution adopted at the meeting, declaring that the NDA would face the 2024 Lok Sabha polls under the Prime Minister’s leadership.
Besides, none of Mr Palaniswami’s critics — the AIADMK’s former coordinator O. Panneerselvam and the AMMK’s general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran, both regarded as potential allies of the BJP — were invited for the meeting. In fact, in respect of the AIADMK’s chief, the national party adopted a different approach
By its treatment of Mr Palaniswami, the BJP’s national leadership seemed to have delivered another message that it would respect the Dravidian major’s primacy in Tamil Nadu’s politics. This was against the backdrop of the BJP’s State president K. Annamalai’s efforts in the last one-and-a-half years to project his party as one of the principal players of the State.
However, be it the issue of his new-found importance in the NDA or his proximity to the Prime Minister, Mr Palaniswami, in an interaction with journalists in New Delhi at the premises of his party’s office, sought to downplay any such talk.
“As far as the NDA is concerned, there is no distinction between big party and small party. All are functioning in a concerted way,” he said, adding all the constituents were given “due respect” at Tuesday’s meeting. Mr Palaniswami went on to say that Mr Modi was not just “close” to him but also “to others.”
To the question whether there would be trouble-free equations between the AIADMK and the BJP in the State in the light of Mr Annamalai’s observation that his party would lead the alliance, Mr Palaniswami reiterated his party’s traditional stand — be it the Lok Sabha poll or the Assembly election, the AIADMK would head the coalition in the State. “At the national level, it would be the NDA.” He also contended that in the AIADMK-led combine, each player was functioning “freely and able to retain their identity, unlike in the DMK’s front.”
Mr Palaniswami observed that the DMK or its president and Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had “no authority” to speak about corruption, given the track record of the ruling party.
As for the High Court’s verdict, the AIADMK leader termed it as a “victory for justice and truth.”
