K Palaniswami was on Monday unanimously elected leader of the AIADMK's legislature group.
Top AIADMK leader K Palaniswami was on Monday unanimously elected leader of the legislature party after about a three-hour meet and he is all set to become the Leader of Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
The meeting of the newly-elected MLAs to elect the legislature party leader, the second within three days, reportedly saw exchanges on who should lead the party in the House with one section pitching for E Palaniswami and the other for coordinator O Panneerselvam.
Eventually, the party announced in a statement that E Palaniswami was elected leader of the legislature party. In a joint statement, E Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam said the election was unanimous.
Later, party leaders called on Tamil Nadu Assembly Secretary K Srinivasan and handed over a letter on E Palaniswami's election.
The MLAs meet on May 7 ended without deciding on who the legislature party leader should be as the consensus building exercise did not apparently succeed.
For a while today, when the legislators meeting was in progress at the party headquarters, social media was abuzz claiming that another leader, former Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal's name was being considered to overcome differences.
The AIADMK won a total of 66 Assembly segments out of the total 234, and the outcome also proved that the western region, the home turf of E Palaniswami continued to be a stronghold of the party.
In southern Tamil Nadu, Theni district being the native of Panneerselvam, the party saw its archrival DMK beating it convincingly. Factors such as these reportedly stood E Palaniswami in good stead.