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Senior AIADMK leader K.A. Sengottaiyan, who called for the unification of various factions, on Thursday met expelled party leaders O. Panneerselvam, T.T.V. Dhinakaran, and V.K. Sasikala during the guru puja of Muthuramalinga Thevar at Pasumpon in Ramanathapuram district. He also travelled with Mr. Panneerselvam in the latter’s vehicle. Reacting to the development, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, who also attended the guru puja, accused Mr. Sengottaiyan of working against the party for long. Mr. Palaniswami told journalists in Madurai that Mr. Sengottaiyan’s “sabotage” led to the party’s defeat in Anthiyur in the 2021 Assembly election. He added that he would not hesitate to take action against Mr. Sengottaiyan. “Due process will be followed,” he said. The AIADMK leader, who has rejected the demand for re-inducting the expelled leaders into the party, said it was a “waste of time” to discuss the coming-together of Mr. Sengottaiyan and the former AIADMK leaders. “They have appeared together, going by their very old plan,” he said. When asked about Mr. Dhinakaran’s statement that the leaders had come together to defeat the “betrayer”, Mr. Palaniswami said the AMMK leader had been making such statements for the past four years. “The Anthiyur Assembly constituency is an AIADMK bastion. We won there even when the party got split. But we lost in Anthiyur in 2021 only because of the betrayal by Mr. Sengottaiyan,” Mr. Palaniswami said. “Even yesterday, Mr. Panneerselvam said the DMK would win the 2026 Assembly election. Is he the man working for the integration of the AIADMK factions? No true AIADMK worker will say so. These people are the ‘B team’ of the DMK,” he said. Stating that weeds in the party had been removed, Mr. Palaniswami asserted that the AIADMK was poised for victory in the next Assembly election. Earlier, in Ramanathapuram, Mr. Dhinakaran described the coming-together as a sign of unity, and said other developments would follow shortly. Speaking at a joint press conference after paying homage to Thevar, he said, “The coming-together could be understood as the beginning of the overthrow of the betrayers; resuming Amma’s [former CM Jayalalithaa’s] good governance; and bringing all her followers under one umbrella.” Mr. Dhinakaran said he and Mr. Panneerselvam had already been together, and Mr. Sengottaiyan, a staunch loyalist of Jayalalithaa, joining them was a new development. “I have always insisted that to bring back the rule of Jayalalithaa, we, her followers, should come together,” Mr. Panneerselvam said. As they “got the blessings” of Thevar, they believed more positive developments would follow. Mr. Sengottaiyan said they had come together to honour the sacrifices of Jayalalithaa. “I had pressed for the unification to overthrow the DMK government and bring the AIADMK back into power,” he added.
