Chennai: AIADMK interim general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday urged party members to strive hard and improve the tally in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and said the party would lead a mega alliance for the poll.
Palaniswami, who is confronted by estranged colleague O Panneerselvam over the leadership tussle, hopes to resurrect the party, surmounting all odds, and steer it to victory, a senior leader said.
“His agenda is to form an alliance and win the Lok Sabha polls decimating the DMK,” he said.
At the district secretaries meeting held here, Palaniswami told the functionaries that the AIADMK will forge a mega alliance and that the party members should strive hard to ensure victory at the hustings.
The party should be strengthened at the booth level and the members should focus more on people’s issues, Palaniswami said at the meeting attended by several senior leaders.
The AIADMK leadership would decide on the number of seats to be allocated to the alliance constituents, he said.
“The year 2023 is very crucial for us. We hope to make a turnaround in our political fortunes and ensure the AIADMK registers a huge victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha election,” former state minister D Jayakumar said.
Speaking to reporters after the district secretaries’ meet, Jayakumar reiterated that the alliance would be formed under the AIADMK leadership.
Asked about the constituents, he replied, “there’s still a year to go. You will come to know about those parties.”
“Honestly speaking there was no discussion about O Panneerselvam, V K Sasikala or T T V Dhinakaran at today’s meet. Our sole objective is to face the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and to defeat the DMK,” Jayakumar said.
At the meeting, senior leader and former state minister Natham Viswanathan echoed the general feeling among the party members on not taking back Panneerselvam into the AIADMK.
The DMK-led alliance had won 38 out of 39 seats in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, allowing the AIADMK to win only one.
