Rein Annamalai in, else... AIADMK ultimatum to BJP

CHENNAI: Miffed by the controversial remark of BJP Tamil Nadu unit president K Annamalai on party supremo and late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK, on Tuesday, issued an ultimatum to BJP national leadership to rein in its state chief.

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami told the district secretaries and senior party leaders to wait and watch for the next two to three days before taking a call on its alliance with the saffron party. “We will wait for three days and see what the BJP leadership’s action on Annamalai for his ill-thought remark on Amma (Jayalalithaa). Depending on that, the party will reconsider its position on the alliance with them,” said a district secretary quoting EPS.

Another senior AIADMK leader told DT Next that the party has reached the tipping point when it comes to ties with the national party. “If this trend continues and the BJP high command fails to teach Annamalai a lesson, the ties with the party will come to an end,” he said.

Reflecting the sentiments of the cadre, senior leaders C Ve Shanmugam, D Jayakumar, and Sellur K Raju hit out at the former IPS officer. Similar was the mood inside the meeting hall where the district secretaries met with many participants seething with rage, resulting in the party leadership coming up with a strongly worded resolution against Annamalai.

The strained ties between the allies hit rock bottom after Annamalai’s remark in an interview said the former CM was convicted on corruption charges and Tamil Nadu was the most corrupt State in the country. This resulted in a war of words and drove the five years alliance to the verge of collapse. However, Annamalai withered the raining vitriol in the last two days and refused to go back on his words.

AIADMK: No point in remaining in NDA as BJP devours allies

“We are well aware of the BJP, which devours its allies. The recent example is Maharashtra,” said another AIADMK leader after the meeting and continued that there is no point in remaining in the NDA anymore.

Palaniswami, after coming out with the district secretaries, read out the three-page resolution against Annamalai.

Annamalai, with an ulterior motive, made disparaging remarks in an interview with an English daily two days ago. It was a premeditated attempt to tarnish the image and popularity of ‘Amma’ (Jayalalithaa). It was unacceptable. The defamatory remark created a wave of rage, anguish and turbulence among party cadre and the public. Amma (Jayalalithaa) was respected by prominent political leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called on her at her residence. It was the AIADMK headed by Jayalalithaa that helped the BJP form its first government at the Centre in 1998.

The BJP had no representatives in the TN Assembly for two decades. It was the AIADMK under the leadership of Palaniswami that helped the saffron party and four of its candidates to become MLAs.

The party supremo ruled the state for 16 years as Chief Minister. She devised several welfare schemes and paved the way for the state’s growth. The schemers have been replicated in other states. “Amma had created history for winning two consecutive Assembly polls,” said the resolution and dubbed Annamalai as a person with zero political knowledge and an immature politician and strongly condemned him for his remark that was made with a hidden agenda.