The first meeting of senior leaders and key functionaries of the ruling AIADMK after the party regained the ‘two leaves’ symbol witnessed heated exchanges here on Monday, particularly on the issue of the reconstitution of its parliamentary board. The recent observations by V. Maitreyan, a long-time Member of Parliament, were also discussed.
After the death of Jayalalithaa and Visalakshi Nedunchezhiyan, two slots in the parliamentary board, which originally had seven members, fell vacant. The other five members are Deputy Chief Minister and Coordinator of the party O. Panneerselvam, chairman of the presidium of the party E. Madhusudhanan, secretary of MGR Mandram A. Tamilmagan Hussain, president of the minority wing A. Justin Selvaraj and secretary of the health wing P. Venugopal.
While there was no objection to the inclusion of Chief Minister and co-coordinator of the party Edappadi K. Palaniswami as a member of the board, the participants were divided as to who should fill the other vacancy. K.P. Munusamy, a prominent face of the erstwhile AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) led by Mr. Panneerselvam, and R. Vaithilingam, MP and a leader of the Palaniswami camp, were strong contenders for the post. Both are presently deputy coordinators of the party.
At one stage, Mr. Palaniswami had to counsel the participants and assure them that the issue could be sorted out through discussions.
Eventually, the issue was resolved by increasing the strength of the board to 9. Both Mr. Munusamy and Mr. Vaithilingam have been included in the board, along with secretary of the literary wing B. Valarmathi.
As for Dr. Maitreyan’s comments, members supporting Mr. Palaniswami expressed dissatisfaction with his public remarks about discontentment within the unified AIADMK. The MP had, in a Facebook post, wondered whether a “union of hearts” had taken place in spite of the merger of the two factions.
