By joining the DMK, former Chief Minister and AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam followed the path trodden by many leaders of his parent party. However, the similarity ends there as no one else has been Chief Minister on three occasions.
Since Nanjil K. Manoharan, the first Finance Minister of the AIADMK government during 1977-80, there has been a long list of prominent leaders – including S. Raghavanandam and PU Shanmugam – who have returned to the DMK. After all, this group of leaders had been formed by the 76-year-old Dravidian elder. Many of the ministers of the current DMK regime, such as KKSSR Ramachandran, S. Muthusamy, S. Regupathy, RS Rajakannappan and EV Velu, left the AIADMK on different occasions because they could not accept Jayalalithaa’s leadership for one reason or the other. After Jayalalithaa, the younger leaders of the AIADMK –V. Senthil Balaji, P. Palaniappan and Thanga Tamilselvan – once considered a bête noire of Mr. Panneerselvam as they both hail from Theni district – gravitated towards the DMK. Between August 2025 and January 2026, leading figures from the Panneerselvam camp in the AIADMK –V. Maitreyan, PH Manoj Pandian and R. Vaithilingam– also did the same.
rapid ascension
None of those who returned to the DMK or started their new stints in the ruling party were seriously considered for the post of Chief Minister when they were in the AIADMK. But the former AIADMK coordinator was hand-picked by Jayalalithaa in 2001 and 2014 to head the government when the courts had ended her chief ministership. When Jayalalithaa died in December 2016, the mantle fell back on him, although by then, growing reservations were being expressed within the AIADMK about the appropriateness of her selection.
Immediately after Panneerselvam resigned from the Chief Minister’s post for the third time in February 2017 and launched ‘dharmayudham’, a political campaign against former acting general secretary VK Sasikala, perceived as one of his benefactors until then, his popularity reached an all-time high. His problem, however, was that he could not make it a lasting asset for the faction – AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) – that he led for about six months that year. In August, his group and then Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami’s faction – AIADMK (Amma) – came together under a single fold, and the “two-leaf” symbol, which had remained frozen for about eight months, was assigned to the merged entity. Panneerselvam, who was the party’s treasurer until his ouster in July 2022, had many times attributed his 2017 decision to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice.
After his exit from the AIADMK, Mr. Panneerselvam wasted no time in reestablishing his ties with Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) founder TTV Dhinakaran, who had played a key role in catapulting him to the Chief Minister’s post in 2001. After all, Mr. Panneerselvam, who was with the party’s Janaki Ramachandran faction during 1988-89, was virtually an unknown figure outside of his area, and the only important position he had held was that of president of the Periyakulam municipality during the period 1996-2001. It was only during the 2001 Assembly elections that it was introduced for the first time. The revival of the relationship between the two leaders went smoothly because Dhinakaran had become a staunch critic of Palaniswami. As expected, the AMMK leader and former Chief Minister contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as electors of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
O. Panneerselvam, then Finance Minister, arrives with then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, to present the State Budget for the year 2012-2013, in the Assembly, in Chennai | Photo credit: R. Ragu
Signaling a change
As someone who began his political career from a modest background, running a tea shop in Periyakulam, about 80 kilometers west of Madurai, Panneerselvam, 75, hailing from the Maravar sub-sect of the Mukkulathor community (a social coalition of three sub-sects, including Kallar and Agamudaiyar), hinted at a growing rapprochement with the DMK even in July and August last year, when he called on the Chief Minister and head of the ruling party, MK Stalin, on some occasions. For the next six months, he maintained an ambivalent public stance and continued to display a friendly attitude towards Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. In fact, when the NDA won Bihar in November, Mr. Panneerselvam, who was then no longer part of the NDA in the state, greeted the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister.
There were times when he also praised Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) founder Vijay. Earlier in January, KA Sengottaiyan, who had joined the TVK in November after being in the AIADMK for over 50 years, expressed hope that Panneerselvam would also join the fledgling party as the two leaders had met in Pasumpon in Ramanathapuram district on the occasion of the birth anniversary of prominent Forward Bloc leader U. Muthuramalinga Thevar in October last year. The final straw for Panneerselvam came when Palaniswami, even after bringing Dhinakaran into the alliance, firmly reiterated her stance against him and Sasikala.
The presence of his son and former MP from Theni, P. Ravindranath, when Panneerselvam met Stalin to formally join the ruling party at Anna Arivalayam in the city on Friday, assumes significance as the former Chief Minister would have kept his son’s political future in mind. His other son, VP Jayapradeep, a member of the AIADMK until July 2022, is also known to be politically ambitious.
What’s in it for DMK?
As for the DMK, the addition of OPS may partially or fully strengthen its strength in the southern districts. In its fight against the anti-governance factor, the ruling party, which has a strong hold in the Cauvery delta and the Kancheepuram-Tiruvallur-Chengalpattu-Chennai belt, hopes to sail south as well, leveraging its extensive network, Panneerselvam input and support from junior partners, including its latest ally, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam. Furthermore, there is a perception that the ruling party does not have many prominent figures from the Maravar community, to which Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu belongs. By admitting Panneerselvam and his followers into his organization, Stalin can hope to fill this social vacuum in the party.
Published – February 27, 2026 01:58 pm IST