With just one day to go to the ADMK party's assertion of announcing the Chief Ministerial candidate for the upcoming state assembly polls, all eyes are on the party as the senior ministers have resumed their hectic parleys between the two factions to mitigate the feud and attain a truce ahead of announcing the CM candidate. 

The 'behind the scenes drama' of the conflict between Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister Panneerselvam over the power tussle during the next elections had come to broad daylight when the both ran into a war of words in defending their rights to claim the power during the executive committee meeting that held at the party's headquarters in Chennai in late last month. 

Initially, the meeting was surfaced with the speculations that it would finalize and announce the CM candidate. However, the party and its senior leaders had braced up a backlash after the top two leaders upheld the tussle than a truce in reaching the consensus. As the meeting concluded with no conclusion for the tussle, senior ADMK leader KP Munusamy said that the party would be announcing the CM candidate on October 7. 

The announcement had sparked multiple speculations, hectic and chaotic parleys, and orchestrated the possibilities of what the state witnessed in 2017 after the demise of Jayalalithaa when Panneerselvam dissented and broke the party by rebelling against the rise of Sasikala. The party had witnessed a high-level drama and it took various efforts and time to merge the factions with Panneerselvam sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister while Edappadi Palaniswami took over as the Chief Minister. 

With the limited scale of tussle, the party sailed through the last three years, and as the next assembly polls neared, the fresh conflict between the top leaders emerged to claim the power in the state and the party. This would be the first legislative election for Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister and he has been showing no signal that he would pave way for Panneerselvam as the former has been hoping to retain the power under his leadership. On the other hand, Panneerselvam has been demanding the party to name him as the CM candidate and to form a steering committee of the party as agreed during the merger in 2017.

With the party members claiming them as a 'double-barrel gun', either of them had loaded with bullets to take on each other in winning their only battle - becoming the Chief Minister, amid being dubious on whether the party would win the assembly polls. As the party announced that the CM candidate would be declared on October 7, both the leaders have held multiple discussions with their respective factions and supporters in their bid to enhance the support and stronghold in winning the battle. 

As the feud between the leaders have been intensifying, both the leaders hadn't spoken directly since the tussle, pushing the senior leaders and ministers to roll out hectic parleys between the factions to reach the consensus from the worsening drift, which the party members fear would damage the party in withstanding against the opposition parties in the elections. Last week, Panneerselvam was at his hometown of Theni and he had held back to back discussions with his supporters over the CM race and the discussions included the presence of senior leaders including state minister Udhayakumar and former minister Natham Viswanathan. 

On Monday, Panneerselvam stirred the speculations over his tweet and said, "Till now all my decisions were taken for the welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu and the party members. It will continue to be in future". By quoting Bhagavat Gita, he added, "What had happened had happened very well. Whatever is happening is also happening very well. Whatever has to happen will happen very well".  

Hours after Panneerselvam's tweeted that he would take a good decision in the coming days, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami had convened a high-level meeting at the secretariat and he discussed about winning the race with senior ministers including SP Velumani, Thangamani, Sengottaiyan, Shanmugam, and Dindigul Sreenivasan and spoken about the tussle with Panneerselvam's faction. According to reports, the Chief Minister had also met with minister Udhayakumar on Monday afternoon and the parleys to pacify the factions had continued on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the same batch of ministers, who met the Chief Minister, had tabled a meet with Panneerselvam at the latter's residence in Chennai and discussed to reach the conclusion, exactly one day ahead for the party's date of announcing the CM candidate. Following the meet with the senior ministers, Panneerselvam had held discussions with his supporters including KP Munusamy and Manoj Pandian MP as both the factions have been intensifying the tug-of-war with no space of truce. 

According to our sources, the senior leaders and ministers have been chalking out a truce deal between the dissented factions. The leaders had spoken with Edappadi Palaniswami and said that he would be the CM candidate as he has major support from the party and they further pressed the Chief Minister to form the steering committee as demanded by Panneerselvam, as the party members had supported the installation of the committee and appealed to the Chief Minister to nod for the demand ahead of the elections. 

The ministers had disclosed a plan to either of the factions that Edappadi Palaniswami can be the Chief Minister while Panneerselvam can be named as the Chief of the 11-member steering committee of the party to arrive at the consensus. However, the Chief Minister hasn't agreed to the demand with the view of having full control over the party, as both the factions are showing no grounds of truce, which is the only possible option for both of them currently. At that current state, it's less likely that the party would be announcing the CM candidate for the assembly polls on October 7.