S.P. Velumani | From loyalist to rebel

In India’s electoral politics, it is not uncommon for trusted lieutenants to turn against their mentors. A case in point is 57-year-old SP Velumani, former Local Government Minister in Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK government, who is now leading his colleagues against the party’s general secretary and former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

During the formative years of Mr. Velumani’s career, the goodwill he reportedly received from former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s confidant VK Sasikala and Ms. Sasikala’s relative Ravanan, who oversaw party affairs in the western region, helped him gain a political breakthrough. Jayalalithaa was inducted into the Cabinet when she returned as Prime Minister in May 2011.

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Mr. Velumani’s departure from the Cabinet in January 2012 almost coincided with Ravanan’s arrest by the Coimbatore Rural Police in connection with a criminal case. He was re-inducted into Jayalalithaa’s Cabinet in May 2014 and appointed to key posts including Local Government and Rural Development, positions which he held continuously for seven years.

The high point of his career came after Mr. Palaniswami became the Prime Minister in February 2017. In fact, after the Supreme Court upheld Ms. Sasikala’s conviction in a disproportionate assets case involving Jayalalithaa, Mr. Velumani was reportedly among those who persuaded Ms. Sasikala to choose Mr. Palaniswami for the top post. His original choice, KA Sengottaiyan, who is now a Minister in the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government, had refused to take up the post.

Driving force

When Ms. Sasikala began serving her prison sentence in Bengaluru, Mr. Velumani quickly emerged as one of the driving forces behind the Palaniswami camp. Their roots in the western belt of Tamil Nadu and their connections to the Kongu Vellala Gounder community complemented the two leaders politically. Soon, Mr. Velumani became known as Mr. Palaniswami’s ‘Friday Man’, giving Mr. Velumani more scope to operate politically in the region. Over time, Mr. Velumani earned the nickname ‘Chief Minister of Coimbatore’. Starting in 2018, anti-corruption activists and their political opponents made allegations that their relatives and aides were awarded high-value contracts by local institutions. The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, which searched 42 properties in Coimbatore district after the DMK formed the government in May 2021, named him as an accused in a supplementary affidavit filed in the Madras High Court last year. The case relates to alleged irregularities in award of tenders by the Greater Chennai and Coimbatore Corporations.

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Mr Velumani remained a popular figure in his constituency thanks to the network he built and the way he built support among voters in Thondamuthur. However, this time he returned to Parliament with a margin of less than 15,000 votes; This marked a sharp decline from his previous winning margin of around 40,000 to 60,000 votes.

Immediately after the party’s debacle in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, talks of a rift between the former Minister and his “benefactor” started doing the rounds. Mr Velumani had said his party would win 35 to 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry if it faced voters in alliance with the BJP.

As the assembly elections approached, the general expectation was that the AIADMK would not come back to power but would do well in the western belt. However, the party’s performance in the region was disastrous. In Coimbatore district, Mr. Velumani was the only AIADMK candidate to win, in stark contrast to the previous elections when the party and its ally, the BJP, won all 10 seats. It was under these circumstances that Mr. Velumani met with his party colleagues, including former Law Minister C.Ve. Shanmugam raised the flag of rebellion against Mr. Palaniswami and supported the TVK government.

Apparently, their game plan did not work as the rebels were able to muster the support of only 25 of the AIADMK’s 47 MPs, falling short of the required 32 MPs. Recently, Mr. Velumani adopted a more conciliatory tone, stating that Mr. Palaniswami was the general secretary. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Velumani will be able to recover or will sink into oblivion.