Chennai, Feb 5: Senior AIADMK leaders are all for V K Sasikala taking over as chief minister, but she is biding time to gauge public opinion as antiSasikala campaigns were reported in many parts of the state in the last two months.
Her photographs were defaced in various parts, shocking her supporters. The "Sasikala for CM" chorus, which reached its peak after she took over the party reins, had mellowed for a while.
The growing acceptance of O Panneerselvam among the bureaucracy also caused heartburn in the Sasikala camp. Moreover, a change of guard in Fort St George may not be as simple as it looks though chief minister Panneerselvam has never openly shown any resistance. So far, he has been carrying out her orders and a telling example is the sacking of government adviser Sheela Balakrishnan and secretaries to CM - K N Venkatramanan and A Ramalingam. But a constituency he had carved out for himself in the last two months is not comfortable with changing the chief minister.
Party leaders said the three officials were shunted out as they had become paral lel power centres in the government. Some even started pursuing personal agendas."Venkatramanan requested to be relieved once his term ended this month end, but he was asked to go on Friday itself," said a government source. Incidentally , Venkatramanan and Ramalingam were given marching orders while on vacation and Sheela Balakrishnan's resignation was accepted at once. The Sasikala camp saw them as the biggest stumbling blocks within the government. Chief information commissioner K Ra manujam, another trusted adviser of the former CM, faces the heat now.
A major shake-up is likely in the government as many IAS and IPS officials have been occupying the same posts for many years, some even for more than five years. Sasikala's husband M Natarajan is pushing for his friend and retired IAS officer A Panneerselvam to be made officer on special duty . He had occupied the post for a while in 2011.
The party organ Dr Namadhu MGR on Saturday came down heavily on DMK leader S Duraimurugan for offering support to Panneerselvam in the assembly last week to complete his full term. The paper had dubbed it a DMK ploy to split the party. It said that the "party MLAs will echo the sentiments" of more than one crore workers on who should lead the government. The inference was clear that Sasikala is the choice.
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