Back in July 2022, six years after party supremo and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha died, the battle between the two warring factions of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) led by Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) and O Panneerselvam (OPS) reached an ear-splitting pitch. July 11, in particular, was a day of fast-paced developments — the party’s general council appointed EPS as the interim general secretary, expelled OPS from the party, and the local Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) sealed the party headquarters with a notice stating that “it was satisfied with an imminent possibility of a breach of tranquillity, peace, and law and order”. The general council also appointed former minister Dindigul Srinivasan as treasurer, a post that OPS had held. To quell any rebellion, all of OPS’ supporters were also summarily removed from the party.

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Many said at the time that this was the official end of OPS’s 50-year-long political career in the AIADMK.

But, the Supreme Court’s refusal on Friday to stall the expulsion of Jayalalitha’s staunch aide and three others from the AIADMK could be perhaps his real “political death” in the AIADMK, a term used by his lawyers while presenting their plea before the apex court. The Supreme Court addressed the issue of the pending trial to determine the intra-party dispute and the order of expulsion, also upholding the Madras high court order of August 25, 2023, which refused to stay the ouster of OPS and his three supporters. The HC said that it recognises the general council of the party to be the ultimate authority to take disciplinary action against any party members and that the merits of the council’s decision in expelling the leaders are a matter for trial.

READ ALSO: SC refuses to stay expulsion of O Panneerselvam, 3 others from AIADMK

However, much before OPS’s unceremonious exit in 2022, there was scant support for him within the party, AIADMK party workers reckon. Political analyst Balachandran, who has closely followed Tamil Nadu politics since 1984 said, “The first litmus test always comes from within the party and members of your caste. AIADMK, post-Jayalalitha’s death, was populated by Gounders, the caste that EPS belongs to. Being a Thevar, OPS’s support base was shrinking and most in the party knew that it was OPS’s loyalty to Jayalalitha that secured him plum posts within the party.”

It is perhaps this brute majority of the powerful Gounder community that dominates Tamil Nadu’s Kongu region, one of the key strongholds of the AIADMK, that caused a greater rift within the party. Until Jayalalitha’s passing, there was no election conducted to the post of the party general secretary since no one was willing to contest against the matriarch and she was elected to the post unanimously each time there was an election.

If the caste consolidation was the first hurdle that OPS failed to scale, the second was his poor leadership skills and unimpressive political acumen, commentator Sathyan said. “The AIADMK has always been a party that has not always rewarded loyalty from the time MG Ramachandran abandoned M Karunanidhi’s DMK to create the AIADMK outfit and Jayalalitha trumped MGR’s wife VN Janaki Ramachandran to take forward his legacy. Despite being Jayalalitha’s aide, OPS has imbibed little political sharpness from his ‘Amma’, as she was called.”

EPS’s ability to be a better winner by securing influential positions for his aides and himself left no room for OPS, analysts said.

“OPS underestimated his bete noir’s power, be it money or the political leverage he had with people from other parties. While the former is known to be obliging and down to earth, EPS’ tactics to keep his enemies closer by making them irrefutable offers makes him the power centre,” Sathyan said.

With not many options to explore, O Panneerselvam is known to have sought the support of VK Sasikala, or Chinnamma, Jayalalitha’s close aide. “That’s when OPS got his final shrug off. Before his ouster in 2022, OPS requested Sasikala to throw her weight behind him. Instead, she chose EPS and let the axe fall on Panneerselvam, a decision she is known to be regretting even today,” said Balachandran. With this, it is said that the fence sitters too pledged their support for EPS, however grudgingly, to save themselves from the ignominy of expulsion. OPS’s lack of connection with the Centre and the BJP top brass is viewed as another drawback for negotiation or entry into the party.

This virtually rules him out of the 2024 Lok Sabha game. O Panneerselvam has all but two years to resurrect himself for the Tamil Nadu elections in 2026.