Edappadi Palaniswami justifies move to boycott Vikravandi bypoll, says DMK will go to any extent to win
The AIADMK’s general secretary, Edappadi K Palaniswami, on Sunday justified his party’s decision to boycott the byelection to the Vikravandi Assembly constituency, slated for July 10. “We made the decision due to fears of enormous use of money and muscle power by the ruling DMK to influence voters,” he told journalists here.
According to him, the people had witnessed how the DMK “manipulated voters” in the byelection to the Erode (East) Assembly constituency last year to ensure victory for the candidate of its ally, the Congress. “Using Ministers and their power, they will go to any extent to retain the Vikravandi constituency. So, we do not want to field our candidates,” he said.
He dismissed as “baseless” senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram’s remark that the AIADMK decided to boycott the byelection on the BJP’s command.
Answering questions on the AIADMK’s failure to win even a single seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he said, “People know the difference between Assembly and General elections. For instance, the DMK won 38 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, but failed to cross the 200-seat mark in the 2021 Assembly election. This shows that one election does not influence another.”
In 2021, the AIADMK-led alliance broke the DMK’s confidence by winning 75 Assembly constituencies. This shows that no party can remain in power forever, he added. Referring to the 1991 Assembly election wherein the DMK won only two seats, he asked, “Did the DMK not perform well after this [1991] election?”.
“We have ample examples to show how parties that had failed miserably rose to power in the subsequent elections,” he said.
He pointed out that in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the AIADMK had performed better than its rivals in Assembly segments such as Vilathikulam and Tirukovilur, which are represented by Ministers. “The people’s decision will be revealed when the AIADMK alliance secures a massive victory in 2026,” he added.
Meanwhile, AIADMK’s deputy floor leader in the Assembly, R.B. Udhayakumar, told The Hindu that the party’s high-level committee chose not to contest in the byelection after discussing the situation. “This is not the first time. In 2009, Amma [late Jayalalithaa], at a meeting in Kodanad, told us that akin to how a message is conveyed by contesting [in an election], boycotting sends a message to the people too,” he recalled.
Asked whether the AIADMK boycotting the byelection would strengthen the BJP’s claim that it was the true Opposition to the DMK in the State, he pointed out that “the BJP was only supporting the PMK candidate” in the bypoll.
Parties have a separate strategy not only for the Parliamentary and the Legislative elections, but also for bypolls, he said.
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