chennai the political thriller that played out at thenpennai the official residence of deputy chief minister o panneerselvam in chennai on saturday had shades of his 2017 dharmayudh with the power play between ops and chief minister edappadi k palaniswami out in the open the ruling aiadmk is faced with the tough question yet again who will be the chief ministerial candidate for the 2021 assembly electionops has sought to defer any discussion or decision on the matter until closer to elections and instead demanded that a steering committee be constituted immediatelyread alsoaiadmk leadership debate i have peoples support says palaniswami as posters appear pitching for ops as cmtamil nadu chief minister k palaniswami on saturday asserted that he has the love and support of the people and vowed to continue to work for them with their well being as his only goalformer aiadmk minister v s vijay joins dmk says ruling party leaders are puppets in the hand of bjpstate joint secretary of medical wingchennai former aiadmk minister v s vijay who joined the dmk on saturday said there is no proper leadership in the ruling party in tamil nadu after the demise of j jayalalithaa according to him the present leaders are puppets in the hands of the rulinga membership in such a committee was the carrot that was being dangled to appease the ops loyalists after the merger of his faction in august 2017 with the epsled aiadmkwhile palaniswami insisted on a meeting to resolve the issue of cm candidate ops opted for a joint statement to partymen urging them to stay united and work for an electoral victory the high drama on saturday morning was triggered by the sudden appearances of posters across theni district an ops turf backing his candidature for the cm post for the 2021 assembly election in no time a delegation of 14 ministers led by p thangamani and s p velumani arrived at ops residencepanneerselvam had directed district functionaries to remove the posters but the eps camp went into a tizzy the ministers assembled at senior minister d jayakumars chamber and headed to ops residence at 1145am after the independence day event only a short while prior to that the cm had handed over the best practice award to panneerselvam also the finance minister for total computerisation of the department on the ramparts of fort st george during the independence day celebrationsthe talks lasted until 3pm when the ministerial team rushed from ops house to eps residence and returned to convey the cms message to his deputy but all that came out of the exercise was a joint statement to partymen to remain united and work for the aiadmks victorythe genesis for the saturday turmoil has been the rash of statements issued by ministers in the past two days one backing eps for cm candidature and another ops even while a couple took the middlepath in cautioning partymen to leave it to the high level bodies of the party