Amid the Coronavirus outbreak, there has seemingly been no scarcity for the controversies in the Tamil Nadu ruling party as while it was fighting against the virus before the camera, a tug-of-war is going on between the ruling faction behind the lenses. 

The outbreak has been exposing politics within the ruling faction and it was apparent when Tamil Nadu Health Minister Vijayabaskar, who was leading the government's efforts to combat the spread, suddenly disappeared and muted from reporting the outbreak. His absence had given more responsibility to Health Secretary Beela Rajesh and it spurred up the speculations on whether Vijayabaskar would be lowered from his power. 

According to our sources, Vijayabaskar has been affirming reputation across the state following which the Chief Minister had stemmed one of his responsibilities. Amid the speculations, Vijayabaskar again appeared for the press meets after a long gap to dot up the opposition. However, our sources say that Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami has isolated him in the procurement of the medical and protective equipment.

One of the government secretaries Uma Nath IAS has been given up with additional responsibility of placing orders and procuring the equipment and he would carry out the orders along with Chief Secretary Shanmugam by giving Vijayabaskar minimal role to play in the process. Following the transition, Uma Nath has caught up with the controversy of procuring the equipment and rapid kits at a high price that was strongly accused by the opposition parties.

Our sources divulge that the Chief Minister doubts that Vijayabaskar has notified the opposition party DMK about the procurement after he has been given no role in the process. According to the sources, Edappadi Palaniswami had likely decided to replace Vijayabaskar with Revenue Minister RB Udayakumar and Udayakumar is likely to become a new Health Minister while Vijayabaskar would take on as Revenue Minister and the Chief Minister has also been considering to replace Uma Nath in the place of Beela Rajesh as Health Secretary.