With only a few more days to go for the urban local bodies polls, V.K. Sasikala, the sidelined former interim general secretary of the AIADMK, has not yet announced her position.
This is in contrast to what she did about a year ago. In March last year - a month before the Assembly election, she announced her decision to “step aside” from politics. However, she appealed to former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s “true followers” to work hard so that the DMK did not return to power. But the presence of the AMMK, floated by her nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran, in the fray following the BJP’s failure to bring together the AMMK and the AIADMK, led to an expected outcome - the defeat of the AIADMK in 20 and odd seats, where the AMMK’s tally of votes exceeded the difference between the State’s two principal players. The AIADMK was out of power after a 10-year-long reign.
Immediately after the Assembly election, Ms. Sasikala briefly carried out her initiative of getting in touch over the phone with sections of the party’s supporters or members who, according to the AIADMK’s spokespersons, were all disgruntled or had crossed over to the AMMK. In the third week of July, when the AIADMK’s presidium chairman, E. Madhusudhanan, was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Chennai, she visited him. A few weeks later, he died, and she paid homage to him. Likewise, when the wife of AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam died in the city in September, she met him to express her condolences, overlooking his February 2017 revolt against her.
In mid-October, at the time of the inauguration of the AIADMK’s golden jubilee fete, she held a separate event to mark the occasion, even as the official camp, led by Mr. Panneerselvam and AIADMK co-coordinator Edappadi K. Palaniswami, hoisted the party flag at the headquarters of the organisation at Royapettah in Chennai. She had called for “unity and the restoration of the AIADMK’s rule” in the State. Even though the talk of rapprochement between her and Mr. Panneerselvam did the rounds for quite some time, the latter and Mr. Palaniswami, in early December, were elected coordinator and co-coordinator, reinforcing the AIADMK’s ‘dual leadership.’
Asked about the impact of the Sasikala factor, if any, the AIADMK organisation secretary, D. Jayakumar, said that [in the last five years] the party had faced all the elections without her. “This time, too, we will do that and emerge victorious,” he added.
Pointing out that the AMMK had put up more candidates in the southern districts than in the north, a senior functionary claimed that Ms. Sasikala supported his party. Va. Pugazhendhi, once a prominent figure in the Dhinakaran camp, predicted the AIADMK’s defeat in the local bodies polls, after which he expected Ms. Sasikala to make her political move.
