What further fuelled speculation that a rift was brewing was that the newly elected members of the AIADMK came to the oath-taking event as two groups. A group of MLA-designates including former state ministers KP Munusamy and Thalavai N Sundaram, accompanied party general secretary Palaniswami to the assembly to officially take oath as MLA.
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Another group under former state minister SP Velumani and accompanied by former minister Dr C Vijayabaskar arrived shortly thereafter. This was in stark contrast to how the AIADMK normally enters the assembly. So far, the AIADMK members would assemble at the entrance of the assembly and would enter as a single entity. They even sat in the assembly in separate groups.
After the swearing in of all the legislators was over, a letter was was submitted to the Pro-tem speaker MV Karuppaiah at his chamber purportedly signed by a group of legislators of the AIADMK stating that the party chief Edapaddi K Palaniswami had been elected leader of the legislature party.
The AIADMK won 47 seats and reports gave conflicting numbers on how many MLAs had signed the letter. While some suggested that around 17 MLAs had signed it, others pegged the number at 24.
Interestingly, later in the day AIADMK leaders from the rebel faction including C Ve Shanmugam, SP Velumani and many other former ministers including Natham R Viswanathan and R Kamaraj, met the pro-tem speaker and presented another letter, claiming the support of 30 MLAs for the leadership of Velumani.”You have waited so far. Please wait for some more time. Everything will be clear,” Shanmugam told reporters who asked him about the tensions in the party.
The rebel group has been pushing for the party to formally back TVK and enter the government. However, Palaniswami was reportedly unwilling to do so. Tensions had been building over the past week, with senior leaders including Shanmugam holding frequent discussions with Velumani and C Vijayabaskar. The group was upset that the party had been losing under Palaniswami and thus was keen to extend support to the TVK government.
