The AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP V Maitreyan, the original complainant to the election commission on Sasikala’s elevation as party general secretary, responds to EC and submits a 61 page, point by point rebuttal of Sasikala claims.

Chennai: The OPS group continues to step up pressure against Sasikala propped government at every available forum – the courts, the central government, the president, the election commission and the peoples’ court.

The result so far for the OPS camp has been not satisfactory as it lost out on the floor of the house in the floor test, in the courts that have not accepted its demand for a probe into Jayalalithaa’s death. Now it is pinning all its hopes on the Nirvachan Sadan that has sought replies of VK Sasikala on her election as the party general secretary, hotly contested by OPS camp, as one that was illegal as per the constitution and rules of the AIADMK.

After Sasikala sent her voluminous reply to the Nirvachan Sadan, the OPS camp sent its own counter as sought by the election commission, arguing that Sasikala’s election was improper and the only course available now was election of a new general secretary as an interim general secretary could not continue forever.

The OPS faction sent a rebuttal of Sasikala’s letter to the election commission, according to AIADMK Rajya Sabha member V.Maitreyan. “A 61-page point-by-point rebuttal to Sasikala’s letter has been submitted to Election Commission today (Tuesday). We have also pointed out the factual errors in Sasikala’s letter to Election Commission,” Maitreyan told newspersons on Tuesday.

Maiteryan had complained to the election commission asking for declaring Sasikala’s election as null and void as all rules were flouted in her election as the AIADMK general secretary. His contention is that the General Secretary of AIADMK has to be elected by the primary members of the party and not by its General Council.

Former AIADMK MP KC Palaniswamy, one of the other complainants, said that Sasikala’s response had glaring mistakes too on facts. In her reply to the Election Commission Sasikala had said: “Shri M.G.Ramachandran (MGR) was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the General Secretary of the party from 1972 to 1987.” Her letter shows that she does not even know the basic history of the party, he said.

“MGR was the party’s General Secretary from 1972 to 1977. After that the post was held by leaders like V.R.Nedunchezhiyan, P.U.Shanmugam and S.Raghavanandam. On the other hand MGR was the party’s Founder President,” Palaniswamy said. After MGR’s death the party split into two factons, one headed by MGR’s widow Janaki Ramachandran and the other by J.Jayalalithaa.

When the two factions merged in 1989 Jayalalithaa was elected as the General Secretary by the General Council, but nobody objected to her election.

But the notice calling the General Council meeting of AIADMK on December 29, 2016 did not have on the agenda, the election of General Secretary.

Given all this, the only option is to hold fresh elections for the post of general secretary, the OPS camp leader maintained.

Meanhile, the efforts of OPS to secure support of other political parties, ended with a rebuff. His camp was trying to rope in the Left parties to oppose the Sasikala faction in the RK Nagar bypoll, but sources said that Left parties rejected the overtures, saying that they would field a candidate in the April 12 bye poll to the constituency represented by late chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

With the prospect of the anti-AIADMK (Sasikala faction) vote splitting in different directions, the ultimate benefit could go to the DMK that is itching to teach the AIADMK a lesson. In fact, the DMK was a close second to AIDAMK in terms of vote percentage in the 2016 general elections and missed power narrowly. The reason why it lost was that anti-AIADMK votes were split in four different directions indicating the failure of DMK to rope in alliance partners.

Sasikala faction leader, TTV Dinakaran, meanwhile exudes the confidence that after the byepoll, “the OPS faction will vanish.”