AIADMK to continue with dual leadership

All India Anna Dramuk Kazhagam (AIADMK) will continue to have two power centres with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami being co-coordinator and his deputy O Panneerselvam holding the post of the party convenor and coordinator.

The issue of dual leadership was not taken up at a crucial meeting of the party office bearers including district secretaries, MPs, MLAs held on Wednesday.

With several party leaders demanding that the party be headed by a single person, it was expected that the issue would be discussed at the meeting which was called to discuss AIADMK's massive defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

However, senior party leader and Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar, who attended the gathering, said that the unitary leadership was not discussed at the party meet, maintaining that "it was not an issue at all".

"Everything is just gossip. There is no truth in it. The demand for single leadership was just a rumor," he said after the two-hour-long meeting at the party headquarters here.

He said that AIADMK's debacle in the elections was mainly discussed at the meeting.

This was the first meeting after the party's drubbing in the recent Lok Sabha elections. Out of the total 38 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK-led alliance which also included BJP lost in 37 with Panneerselvam's son P Raveendranath being the lone winner from Theni constituency. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) won 23 while the Congress won 8 Lok Sabha seats in the state.