Chennai, Nov 1 Former Tamil Nadu minister and AIADMK leader K.A. Sengottaiyan on Saturday asserted he would explain his position, a day after party General Secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) booted him out of the party following his high-profile meeting with expelled leaders O. Panneerselvam, T.T.V. Dhinakaran, and V.K. Sasikala at Pasumpon.
Talking to reporters in Gobichettipalayam, Sengottaiyan said: "I will clarify the issue and give my explanation from the party office today."
His remarks came amid mounting speculation over a possible political realignment within the fractured AIADMK fold.
The controversy erupted after Sengottaiyan, one of the senior-most AIADMK leaders and a long-time confidant of late Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, travelled in the same car as former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam from Madurai to Pasumpon in Ramanathapuram district to attend the 118th birth anniversary and Guru Puja of freedom fighter Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar.
At the memorial, the two were joined by Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) General Secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran, and the trio jointly garlanded Thevar’s statue and offered floral tributes.
Later, both OPS and Sengottaiyan met Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s close aide, who also visited Pasumpon to pay her respects.
The rare meeting of the four once-powerful figures from the AIADMK camp created a political storm across Tamil Nadu.
The gathering came just weeks after Sengottaiyan publicly urged that those who had left the AIADMK should be brought back to strengthen the party, even setting a notional time frame for EPS to rebuild the organisation before the 2026 Assembly elections. His remarks were widely seen as a veiled criticism of EPS’s leadership, leading to his removal from all party posts earlier this month - though he had continued as a member until now.
Reacting swiftly to the latest developments, EPS convened a meeting at his Salem residence on Friday evening with senior functionaries, including Deputy General Secretaries K.P. Munusamy and Natham R. Viswanathan, Treasurer Dindigul C. Srinivasan, and Headquarters Secretary S.P. Velumani. Following the discussions, EPS announced Sengottaiyan’s expulsion from the party for "anti-party activities".
Political observers view Sengottaiyan’s ouster as a sign of deepening rifts within the AIADMK, with talk of renewed efforts by the Sasikala-OPS-Dhinakaran camp to regroup ahead of the 2026 polls.
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