CNN Central News & Network–ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: A week before Tamil Nadu went to vote in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai, as he was campaigning for former chief minister O Panneerselvam at Ramanathapuram, said the election result would indicate the true leader of the AIADMK. The next day as he campaigned for TTV Dhinakaran in Theni, he went a step ahead and said former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami and AIADMK would become extinct post elections and the AIADMK cadres would join the Dhinakaran’s AMMK. Palanisami warned Annamalai for his remarks. “Someone says AIADMK will become extinct. You are an IPS officer right. Find it and give,” Palanisami replied.
But on June 4, as the results began trickling down, it seemed as if Annamalai’s words would come true. The AIADMK headquarters at Avvai Shanmugam Salai in Chennai wore a deserted look without any leaders and cadres. The party had lost eight elections in a row after the demise of its former leader J Jayalalithaa. The factional feud within the party, the several splits it witnessed after 2017 and Palanisami’s strategy to go soft on the BJP have led the party to a major debacle.
The party came second in 27 of the 32 seats it contested. It scored 20.46 percent votes which is a nominal increase from the 19 per cent votes it scored in 2019 by contesting from 22 seats. Together with the SDPI and the DMDK, the AIADMK’s vote share stands at 23 per cent. The AIADMK’s unimpressive lineup of candidates and Palanisami’s strategy to groom the next-line leaders, pushing the second-rank leaders behind has failed to pay prospects for the AIADMK. It seemed most of its second-rank leaders including former ministers like SP Velumani, P Thangamani, M R Vijayabhaskar and KP Munusamy did not work on the ground to support the candidates.