Chennai, June 27 Adding salt to the wound on O. Panneerselvam and his supporters, the AIADMK organising secretary and former minister D. Jayakumar on Monday said that the party general council will be held on July 11 as decided in the previous general council meeting.
He was speaking to reporters after a party headquarters office-bearers meeting held at the party headquarters. Jayakumar said that of the 74 members who were supposed to attend the day's meeting 65 showed up.
The former minister said that the office-bearers had requested the party headquarters secretary and former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami to hold a meeting under the chairmanship of party presidium chairman A. Tamilmagan Hussain. He said that this was due to the fact that the posts of party coordinator and co-coordinator have ceased to exist.
It may be noted that former Chief Minister Panneerselvam was the party coordinator while Edappadi K. Palaniswami was its co-coordinator.
Regarding the validity of the day's meeting, a point which was raised by Panneerselvam, Jayakumar said that rule 20A (vii) of the party's by-law stated that in the event of coordinator or co-coordinator getting relieved or till new incumbents for the two posts assumed charge, the office-bearers nominated by the previous coordinator and co-coordinator would remain in office and continue to function.
However, AIADMK spokesman and former MLA Kovai K. Selvaraj who is attached to the faction of Panneerselvam said that the meeting that was held on Monday was itself invalid as it could not adopt any resolution.
He also maintained that the actual number of participants in the day's meet was much less than what was claimed by Jayakumar. With the friction between the Panneerselvam group and Palaniswami group widening, the principal opposition party is on a sticky wicket.
The BJP, which is its ally in the NDA coalition in Tamil Nadu is also watching the developments closely as it has a major chance to reap the rift and to try and increase its political base in the state.
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