S.P. Velumani | From loyalist to rebel

In India’s electoral politics, it’s miles no longer uncommon for trusted lieutenants to turn against their mentors. A working instance is 57-twelve months-old S.P. Velumani, Tamil Nadu’s damaged-down Native Administration Minister in the AIADMK authorities, who’s now main colleagues against the celebration’s total secretary and damaged-down Chief Minister Edappadi Ok. Palaniswami.

In the adolescence of Mr. Velumani’s profession, the goodwill he reportedly loved from V.Ok. Sasikala, the confidante of damaged-down Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, and Ravanan, a relative of Ms. Sasikala who oversaw celebration affairs in the western topic, helped him right a political step forward. When Jayalalithaa returned as Chief Minister in Can also simply 2011, he changed into inducted into the Cabinet.

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Mr. Velumani’s exit from the Cabinet in January 2012 nearly coincided with the arrest of Ravanan by the Coimbatore Rural Police in connection with a criminal case. He changed into reinducted into Jayalalithaa’s Cabinet in Can also simply 2014, and entrusted with key portfolios, including Native Administration and Rural Pattern, positions he held for seven years at a stretch.

The excessive point of his profession came after Mr. Palaniswami grew to change into Chief Minister in February 2017. In point of fact, after the Supreme Court docket upheld Ms. Sasikala’s conviction in a disproportionate sources case appealing Jayalalithaa, Mr. Velumani changed into amongst of us that reportedly persuaded Ms. Sasikala to settle Mr. Palaniswami for the end publish. Her normal choice, Ok.A. Sengottaiyan, now a Minister in the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam authorities, had declined to soak up the job.

Riding force

Once Ms. Sasikala started serving her penal complicated term in Bengaluru, Mr. Velumani swiftly emerged as one among the driving forces in the abet of the Palaniswami camp. Their roots in Tamil Nadu’s western belt and affiliation to the Kongu Vellala Gounder neighborhood complemented the 2 leaders politically. Rapidly, Mr. Velumani came to be called the ‘Man Friday’ of Mr. Palaniswami, who, in turn, allowed bigger house to the damaged-correct down to characteristic politically in the topic. Over time, Mr. Velumani earned the sobriquet ‘Coimbatore’s Chief Minister’. From 2018 onwards, allegations were made by anti-corruption activists and his political adversaries that his household members and aides secured excessive-price contracts awarded by native our bodies. After the DMK formed the authorities in Can also simply 2021, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, which performed searches at 42 properties in Coimbatore district, named him as an accused in an additional affidavit filed sooner than the Madras Excessive Court docket closing twelve months. The case pertains to alleged irregularities in the award of contracts by the Higher Chennai and Coimbatore Companies.

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Mr. Velumani has remained a favored figure in his constituency, owing to the community he constructed and the ability he cultivated enhance amongst electors in Thondamuthur. On the opposite hand, this time, he returned to the Assembly with a margin of lower than 15,000 votes — a challenging decline from his earlier winning margins of spherical 40,000 to 60,000 votes.

Talks of a rift between the damaged-down Minister and his “benefactor” started circulating as we train after the celebration’s debacle on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Mr. Velumani had acknowledged his celebration would occupy won 35 to 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry if it had confronted the voters in an alliance with the BJP.

In the escape-as much as the Assembly elections, the total expectation changed into that the AIADMK would no longer return to energy nonetheless construct smartly in the western belt. But the celebration’s efficiency in the topic proved disastrous. In Coimbatore district, Mr. Velumani changed into the right AIADMK candidate to gain, in challenging disagreement to the old election when the celebration and its ally, the BJP, secured all 10 seats. It changed into in these situations that Mr. Velumani, along with celebration colleagues, including damaged-down Law Minister C.Ve. Shanmugam, raised the banner of rise up against Mr. Palaniswami and supported the TVK authorities.

It sounds as if, their recreation opinion didn’t work, as the rebels might per chance well muster the enhance of most attention-grabbing 25 legislators out of the AIADMK’s 47, falling rapid of the specified 32. Of uninteresting, Mr. Velumani has adopted a extra conciliatory tone, mentioning that Mr. Palaniswami is the total secretary. Whether or no longer Mr. Velumani can bounce abet or recede into oblivion remains to be viewed.