A faction of Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK, led by senior leader C. V. Shanmugam, on Tuesday announced its support to the ruling coalition headed by Chief Minister Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam.
Shanmugam cited the AIADMK’s repeated electoral defeats over the past decade as the main reason behind the move.
The party suffered three defeats against its arch-rival DMK and faced another setback in last month’s election, this time at the hands of Vijay’s TVK.
“We need to revive the party. We must discuss the future of the AIADMK,” Shanmugam told the media.
He said the AIADMK was founded on anti-DMK politics and had opposed the DMK for 53 years.
According to him, a proposal to form an AIADMK government with DMK support was rejected by a majority of his supporters.
“If we form an alliance with the DMK, the AIADMK will cease to exist. Our members refused to accept such a situation. We currently stand without any alliance, and our focus must now be on reviving and strengthening our own party. Therefore, we decided to extend support to the victorious TVK,” he said.
However, Shanmugam insisted that he had no intention of splitting the AIADMK.
His move is likely to trigger a confrontation with the party’s core leadership, especially former chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, who had refused to ally with Vijay’s TVK during last week’s government formation talks.
Last week, there were tense moments for Palaniswami after reports emerged that a group of AIADMK leaders had camped at a resort in Puducherry. They were reportedly demanding that the party support TVK in its attempt to form the new government.
Vijay’s TVK won 108 seats in the 234-member Assembly, emerging as the single largest party but falling 10 seats short of a majority.
The Congress extended support with five MLAs, while the remaining numbers became the centre of intense political drama.
At that stage, the Shanmugam-led AIADMK faction had reportedly pushed to bridge the gap and help TVK secure the numbers.
The AIADMK leadership had then dismissed reports of rebellion, claiming that everything was under control.
It also said the MLAs had been moved only to prevent alleged poaching attempts by TVK.
