For ADMK, the next stop for election is two years away and to have a long run till the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party is in an imperative state to fix the internal trouble and tussles and the episodes of a tug-of-war for the past few years in the ADMK has implied that there is no bottom line for the political uncertainty in the party. But the results of the Tamil Nadu urban local body polls had put the party under pressure that it has to address the leadership crisis, and to address it, the party will go into a fresh crisis. 

2019 Lok Sabha polls, 2021 assembly polls, 2021 rural local body polls, and now 2022 urban local body polls -these were the elections that had destructed ADMK's fortress. In all these four elections, ADMK had faced debacles and plunged drastically. After the emergence of dual leadership, it has become factual that no election had held a smooth and amicable atmosphere within the party as the top two leaders and their supporters are locking horns to finalize the party's election alliance and candidates. 

The ADMK leadership led by Edappadi Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam has always been under scrutiny with the allegations that they neither review the elector loss nor had shown interest to resolve the leadership and political crisis. Though the ADMK sits in the opposition currently, the brand value of the party has been diminishing and it was vividly evident in the recently held urban local body polls. Not only the party had lost the race but it also had lost its strongholds to the DMK, which were elusive for MK Stalin during the 2021 assembly polls. 

In what has been spelt as crucial revenge against the ADMK, the DMK has remarkably swept the local bodies in the ADMK's stronghold of Kongu districts including Salem and Coimbatore. These two districts had been the backyards of ADMK's Edappadi Palaniswami and SP Velumani respectively during the previous ADMK regime but now, the ADMK has the grassroot of its fortress. The local body polls were held last Saturday and the votes were counted on Tuesday.

Ever since the counting had begun, the ADMK was trailing back and it was not close to the DMK's tally. The allied parties in the DMK had also reaped good numbers of seats while some of the parties had faced turbulence in taking off. It's a global known fact that the current ADMK leaders Edappadi Palaniswami and Panneerselvam aren't ready to fix the ongoing crisis but the political observers say that the ADMK would soon witness the convergence of voice for a change in leadership. 

During Jayalalithaa's era, ADMK was like a military camp and the party was fully under the control of Jayalalithaa. However, within years of her demise, the camp was shattered by the strong winds of intra-party furore and tussle. As the MK Stalin wave has lashed out at the ADMK in the urban local body polls, it's more likely that the ADMK would witness a raise of voice in support of VK Sasikala, the close aide of Jayalalithaa. It was the first urban local body poll in ten years. 

In the 2011 urban local body polls, the ADMK had won almost 50 per cent of the seats under the leadership of Jayalalithaa. However, a decade later, in the 2022 local body polls, the ADMK had bordered with only 15 per cent of seats. In order to prove that ADMK has the support of people, it has to wait for two more years for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and until then, it has to keep its engine running with a unanimous captain. While Edappadi Palaniswami had lost in Salem, the ADMK has also in Theni, which is the home turf of ADMKs Chief Coordinator O Panneerselvam. 

A total of 12,838 seats for 21 corporations, 138 municipalities, and 489 town panchayats were on the ballots on February 19 and according to the State Election Commission, the ADMK has won 194 wards in corporations (11.94 per cent), 638 wards in municipalities (16.80 per cent), and 1,206 seats in town panchayats (15.82 per cent). Speaking to IANS, political analyst Dr R Padmanabhan has said that the ADMK has been losing successive elections since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Padmanabhan said that ADMK needs a course correction as the dual leadership of Panneerselvam and Edappadi Palaniswami has failed and the party cast the need for change. As Stalin has emerged powerful, the opposition has to take immediate steps to stay alive in the politics of Tamil Nadu. He added that for the past nine months, Stalin's administration as the Chief Minister has touched all aspects of public life. Padmanabhan added that the only way for ADMK is to go back to the grassroots and build the party, that is on the brink of getting collapsed.