As Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's health condition continues to be serious, her party AIADMK is now putting in place a succession plan that has stand-in chief minister OP Paneerselvam leading the administration as well as the party.
However, with Jaya never defining a proper second-rung leadership, it remains to be seen if the succession plan will play out as devised.
Sources say senior leader Edappadi Ramamoorthy and Lok Sabha deputy speaker Thambi Durai are also in the running but the trump card could be with Sasikala, Jayalalathia's close aide and a power centre on her own right.
Sasikala's coterie, estimated at more than 60 MLAs plus 12 ministers, would attempt to counter any attempt by DMK or others to unseat the AIADMK government, sources said. In the current assembly, AIADMK enjoys a brute majority with 136 out of the 234 seats.
There is also a possibility that forgetting their differences, albeit temporarily, various factions of the AIADMK backed by the bureaucracy would try and stick together to run the government that is only a few months into its five-year term.
Sasikala, despite her trust deficit with Paneerselvam's may not rock his boat understanding well that Amma herself reposed faith in him and any attempt to undermine his position may backfire with the larger public. She could also field Sheela Balakrishnan, a former chief secretary and chief adviser to the CM, as a trump card to contain dissent within AIADMK.
Across the political divide, the Opposition DMK also faces a conundrum as it wouldn’t want to play too much on the faction fights in the AIADMK. If the government collapses because of infighting, it will lay ground for the Centre for a prolonged period of President’s rule that could help BJP politically exploit the situation in the state, fears DMK.
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