Political narratives, if left unchallenged, can tilt the balance in elections. AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami appears more cognisant of this than anyone else in the electoral field in Tamil Nadu this election season.
Ever since he reluctantly returned to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) last April at the behest of the BJP’s principal poll strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Mr. Palaniswami has been under attack from his rivals, chiefly from the ruling DMK and its allies.
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Over the past few years, the DMK front has built a strong political narrative projecting the AIADMK leadership as being subservient to the BJP and the Narendra Modi-led Union government.
This perception was bolstered by the decision of the erstwhile AIADMK government, under both O. Panneerselvam and Mr. Palaniswami, to embrace certain Central schemes that Jayalalithaa, their predecessor, had strongly opposed during her lifetime. This included the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY), which Tamil Nadu joined in January 2017, just a month after her death.
