CHENNAI: Three-time chief minister and expelled AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam, 75, joined DMK on Friday morning. DMK is likely to give him a seat — possibly Bodinayakkanur in Theni, which he won in 2021 — to contest in the upcoming assembly election.OPS joined the DMK in the presence of chief minister M K Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, the party’s headquarters.Minister P K Sekarbabu was seen accompanying Panneerselvam in the same car, signalling the party’s coordinated move.Sources said OPS, who had been sending feelers to DMK, took the decision after AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami welcomed AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran, another expelled AIADMK leader, into the NDA. EPS was firm that he wouldn’t take back OPS.DMK leaders confirmed there was an exchange of messages with OPS before his formal induction. A senior DMK leader had earlier told TOI that he was scheduled to join on Friday morning. OPS, who had checked into a hotel on Radhakrishnan Salai ahead of the move, had remained unreachable prior to the announcement.Panneerselvam’s supporters R Vaithilingam and Paul Manoj Pandian had resigned their MLA posts and joined DMK recently. In August, Panneerselvam withdrew from NDA, citing “insults” from the BJP camp. Four months later, he called on Union home minister Amit Shah to convey that he would not join NDA unless the AIADMK factions were unified.On Sunday, Panneerselvam had said Amit Shah told him that the DMK alliance is strong enough to win against a divided AIADMK.OPS had said, “I pleaded with him to bring together the groups and unify the party. He (Shah) said he had tried to persuade (EPS) but he wouldn’t listen … Shall I join the Sankara mutt?”OPS supporters said the decision was not an easy one. “Some of his kin were not keen on the move,” said a source. “But it was the right thing to do given the circumstances. He wants to take on Palaniswami,” said another aide. “He can do it only by joining a powerful force like DMK.”Late CM Jayalalithaa chose Panneerselvam as the stand-in chief minister twice — in 2001 and 2014. He became CM again in 2016 after Jayalalithaa’s death, but lost the post within a couple of months. He later served as deputy CM and joint coordinator of AIADMK, but his differences with Palaniswami grew. In July 2022, Palaniswami got the party bylaws amended, eliminating the dual leadership structure and expelling OPS from the party.As for the seat he is likely to get, a DMK leader said there are contenders within the party for the Bodinayakkanur seat and he may be given another seat in the region. In the 2024 polls, Panneerselvam contested independently from Ramanathapuram and came second, securing 3.42 lakh votes.
