CHENNAI: Nearly a month after the Lok Sabha polls results were declared, the AIADMK leadership has invited the candidates, senior party leaders and functionaries to introspect on their peformance and the factors that resulted in their defeat.
The party fielded candidates in 32 constituencies while two of their alliance partners contested two seats under the AIADMK’s ‘two-leaves’ symbol. They lost from all 34 seats.
In a first time in the history of the party, it forfeited deposits in seven constituencies, including Chennai South from where former minister D Jayakumar’s son and former MP J Jayavardhan contested.
AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami was criticised for the party's continuous electoral losses. His critics including expelled AIADMK leaders even ridiculed him by dubbing him as “Pathu Tholvi Palaniswami”.
However, Palaniswami put on a brave face and stated that the party had managed to increase its vote share by 1 percent when compared to the 2019 polls.
To learn from their losses and move forward with better strategies, Palaniswami has called everyone from Lok Sabha poll candidates to lower rung leaders for the closed door meeting to deliberate on the possible factors that led to the party's defeat in the 34 consttuencies.
The meeting is scheduled to take place in the party headquarters in Chennai at 3.30 pm today.
On the first day, the leaders will hold a discussion with party candidate for Kancheepuram constituency Rajasekar who lost to DMK’s G Selvam by a margin of 2.21 lakh votes. The election in-charge and functionaries from the constituencies would also be invited for the discussion.
It will be followed by a conversation with Sriperumbudur candidate G Premkumar who lost to former union minister and DMK candidate T R Baalu by a margin of 4.87 lakh votes.
Nearly two hours of deliberations have been allotted for each constituency.
The post-poll introspection exercise will continue till July 17 for the remaining constituencies.