Senior AIADMK leader issues 10-day ultimatum to EPS for party unification

Senior AIADMK leader and former minister KA Sengottaiyan has given party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) a 10-day ultimatum to bring back leaders who have drifted away from the party. He stressed that only a united AIADMK could effectively challenge the ruling DMK effectively in the 2026 Assembly elections.

“Unless the party general secretary takes the initiative to ensure the homecoming of those who have left within 10 days, well ahead of the Assembly polls, I will not participate in the campaign alongside him. Instead, I will carry forward the task of unification with like-minded leaders,” Sengottaiyan told reporters at the AIADMK office in Erode.

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“It is up to the general secretary to decide on whom to readmit into the party. All those who have left the AIADMK have no preconditions for their homecoming. They have held key positions in the party. In public and in private they have expressed this,” he said adding that this should be done in the spirit of ‘forget and forgive’.

He also drew attention to the fact that EPS himself had once been suspended from the party by Jayalalithaa in 2009.

Recalling how party founder MG Ramachandran (MGR) and Amma (Jayalalithaa) have eschewed bitterness and opened the doors of the party to critics, Sengottaiyan pointed out that cadres and grassroots workers were disheartened by the string of electoral defeats since 2019.

Urging EPS to follow their example, he said, “MGR walked the extra mile to mollify former minister and party strongman from the Cauvery delta region SD Somasundaram who had submitted a memorandum on corruption in the AIADMK government to the Governor and brought him back. Jayalalithaa too followed the same. There is no towering charismatic leader than MGR and Jayalalithaa,” he said in his renewed push for unification and asked, “Has anyone who has gone astray from the party approached the Governor against the AIADMK government?”

Sengottaiyan also revealed that six former ministers had raised the issue of unification with EPS after the AIADMK’s poor performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but the effort had failed due to EPS’s lack of interest.

“Had we faced the 2024 LS poll with the BJP, instead of ploughing a lonely furrow, the AIADMK could have won at least 30 seats. It was a grave miscalculation, Now, unity of the AIADMK is a prerequisite for regime change,” he observed.

“I was invited by the BJP leadership,” was his response to a question about his visit to the national capital to meet top BJP leaders a few months earlier. He declined to reveal whether he had met VK Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s confidant, adding only that the matter was a “suspense.”. However, he also disclosed that he had twice been offered the top post, but had declined to keep the party intact and united.

Sasikala welcomed Sengottaiyan’s renewed push for unity, calling it “the need of the hour.” “Let us unite and prove we are successful. Sengottaiyan, who has been in the party right from the days of MGR, has proved that AIADMK blood runs through his veins.” Former deputy chief minister O. Panneerselvam, who like Sasikala was expelled from the party, also backed the move. “We will support every effort at unification,” he said.

While many leaders aligned with EPS are tightlipped on this, senior AIADMK leader Dindigul C Sreenivasan maintained that it was up to the party general secretary. “The decision of EPS is our decision,” he told reporters.