Chennai, Mar 19 (UNI) In a special and urgent sitting, the Madras High
Court on Sunday allowed the AIADMK to hold elections for the post of
General Secretary (GS) as scheduled, while directing that the results
should not be announced till March 22.
Mr Justice K Kumaresh Babu passed this order on a petition filed by
ousted AIADMK leader O.Panneerselvam challenging the elections
for the post of GS announced by his bete noire and Interim General
Secretary Edappadi K.Palaniswami, who commands a majority support
from the General Council members and district secretaries.
The filing of nominations for the March 26 General Secretary polls
began yesterday and ended at 3.00 P.M. today. Since Mr Palaniswami
was the only candidate to have filed his nominations for the GS post,
he will be declared elected unopposed and will become the full time
GS reverting back to the unitary leadership days of Party Founder and
late CMs MGR and J.Jayalalithaa as desired by the majority of the party
cadres.
The scrutiny will take place tomorrow and the last date of withdrawals
is March 21.
During the urgent hearing, the Judge also directed the City Civil Court
which was hearing a plea filed by Mr Panneerselvam against the July 11
last year General Council resolutions, to hear the case on March 22 and
pronounce the verdict on March 24.
After the court orders, supporters of both the warring factions claiming
that it has favoured them, celebrated it by bursting crackers and shouting
slogans hailing their leaders.
While the Palaniswami camp celebrated it as the court has given the nod
for holding the polls, the Panneerselvam faction too celebrated as the
court has put on hold in announcing the results.
Senior counsel CS Vaidyanathan appeared for Mr Palaniswami and Vijay
Narayan appeared for AIADMK, while senior counsels PS Raman, Sriram,
C Manishankar argued in favour of expelled leaders PH Manoj Pandian,
R Vaithilingam, JCD Prabhakar, who have filed the petition on behalf of
their faction leader Panneerselvam.
MORE UNI GV 1939