Chennai: Edappadi Palanichami has sent to Annamalai asking for BJP’s support and O. Panneerselvam asking for double leaf symbol. Meanwhile, the BJP will take a major decision today at the Cuddalore executive committee meeting about contesting. At the same time, Vasan withdrew from the competition by announcing that he would not compete. However, Edappadi’s reluctance to announce the candidate in the alliance has created a stir in AIADMK circles.
Erode East Constituency MLA Thirumakan Eevera, who belonged to the Congress party, died due to ill health. In this regard, the Election Commission of India had announced that the by-election for this constituency will be held on February 27. Accordingly, the DMK and AIADMK parties, which are the main parties in Tamil Nadu, were discussing various suggestions with the alliance parties regarding the candidate.
In this case, it was announced yesterday that the Erode East constituency will be allotted to the Congress party in the DMK alliance. Chief Minister M. K. Stalin made an official announcement in this regard yesterday. The Congress Party is expected to announce its candidate in a day or two.
At present, the cold war between Edappadi Palaniswami and O. Panneerselvam in AIADMK continues. In the last assembly elections, Tamaka contested on behalf of the AIADMK alliance in the Erode East constituency on the double leaf symbol and met with defeat. In this case, unexpectedly, since the by-elections for Erode East constituency have been announced, AIADMK Interim General Secretary Edappadi Palaniswami’s side and Tamaka President GK Vasan’s side have been consulting for the last two days to decide the candidates. GK Vasan emphasized that the AIADMK should respect the alliance dharma and help Tamaka contest in this negotiation. However, Edappadi Palaniswami said that the AIADMK wants to contest the election as it will be a shame for the opposition parties if Tamaka loses the election.
In this way, despite the talks aside, after the information leaked that the AIADMK has decided to field AIADMK Municipal District Secretary and former minister KV Ramalingam as a candidate in Erode East constituency and started the election work last week, there were talks among the senior officials of Tamaka that the AIADMK had violated the alliance dharma.
At the same time, it was decided that Tamaka would be given full support if she contested on behalf of the BJP. If the BJP contests this by-election alone, it will not even get a deposit. If that is the case, we cannot talk about the division of seats in the AIADMK alliance in the Lok Sabha elections. At the same time, the BJP, which believes that O. Panneerselvam, who believed in the BJP, will abandon him, will not support Edappadi if Tamaka contests. The BJP thought it could ask for half the seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
Annamalai, speaking on the basis of this, requested Tamaka to contest in this constituency. But Vasan, who felt that we should not get caught in the cold war between AIADMK and BJP, gave up on approaching Edappadi for a seat and announced in advance that he would not contest the election. As usual, Vasan, who drags out any matter till the end of the election nomination, this time announced his decision in advance. This is Edappadi’s first stage win.
At the same time, the All India leadership asked the BJP state leadership not to contest from the Erode East constituency. But don’t support after hearing like Vasan. It is said that Annamalai has decided to give up. At the same time, O. Panneerselvam is currently the coordinator of AIADMK as far as Election Commission is concerned. There is a situation where he gets a double leaf only if he gives a letter.
Edappadi is talking to him through BJP leaders and asking him to get an order from the Election Commission that Edappadi is the Interim General Secretary of AIADMK. But O. Panneerselvam should accept and announce me as the coordinator. If you do, I will give you a letter. He says I didn’t even stop the candidate. But Edappadi did not agree to this. At the same time, Annamalai kept aside saying that we did not come for this game. He only said that if AIADMK contests, he will come to the campaign and stepped aside.
Thus, if the Edappadi team contests in the AIADMK, O. Panneerselvam will stop one of his supporters and the AIADMK coordinator will give a letter and ask his candidate for a double leaf symbol. Then Edappadi will appeal to the Election Commission that it should not be given to him. This will cause the Election Commission to disable the symbol. Thus the blame for disabling the symbol falls on Edappadi instead of Panneerselvam. Due to this, Idiappa is in trouble. But Edappadi is determined to contest from Erode East. He has been asking the BJP to help Chinnama. But the BJP is said to have given up. Due to this, there is constant confusion in the AIADMK alliance.
In this situation, Tamil State Congress Party President GK Vasan has announced that he will accept AIADMK’s desire to contest from Erode East constituency. In a statement released this morning, he said: In the last 2021 Assembly General Election, the Tamil State Congress Party was given an opportunity to contest in the Erode East Assembly constituency on behalf of the AIADMK alliance. In this constituency, Yuvaraja contested as the candidate of the Democratic Party of India. Erode East Assembly Constituency is home to people from all walks of life. In this, we got 58,396 votes by winning the trust of the voters due to the hard work of the administrators and volunteers of the alliance parties. In that block, we have been doing welfare work for the last 20 months.
However, considering the current political situation and future parliamentary and assembly elections, DMK has accepted the choice of AIADMK, the main party of the alliance, to contest.
He has made a statement.