Incumbent chief minister K Palaniswami will be AIADMK's chief ministerial candidate for the 2021 assembly polls in Tamil Nadu. The decision was announced by Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam during a meeting at the party office in Chennai.
Meanwhile, the AIADMK has constituted a steering committee of 11 members for the upcoming assembly elections in the state.
Panneerselvam, on his twitter handle, had posted a cryptic message recently. The top leader said he had so far taken "decisions" only
considering the welfare of the Tamil Nadu people and the AIADMK cadres. In future too, he would continue to take "decisions" taking into account the interests of the people and party workers, he said.
Whatever has happened already was well and good, present events were also well and good and the future too would turn out well, he said, indicating that the churning in the party over the leadership question would eventually be for people's good and the AIADMK as well.
At the September 28 AIADMK Executive Committee meeting, Palaniswami and Panneerselvam had a verbal duel over who should be the Chief Ministerial candidate and on setting up a panel that would guide key decisions of the party.
Following AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa's death in December, 2016, Panneerselvam and Palaniswami led separate factions and they came together in 2017 August easing out V K Sasikala (Jayalalithaa's aide) and her relatives from the party.
(With PTI inputs)
