BJP-AIADMK Knocks At The DMK Citadel Of Power

The Tamil Nadu State Assembly elections are due only in April 2026, a good one year away. And yet, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) kicked off its election campaign last week by getting the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) to align with it publicly and ceremonially in Chennai.

The alliance was sealed by none other than the BJP’s powerful Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who flew down to Chennai solely for that purpose.

Shah’s idea was to signal to the Tamils that the BJP is a serious contender for power in Tamil Nadu, the only State in India to have consistently resisted its majoritarian agenda that is seen by the people as anti-federal and centralising. The BJP has become a factor in four of the five Southern States with only Tamil Nadu holding out.

Shah made no secret of the BJP’s wish to be part of an AIADMK government if the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the State elections. The BJP needs to have its hands on the levers of power in Tamil Nadu, not just a few seats in the Assembly.

As part of the electoral strategy, the AIADMK has entered into an alliance with the BJP despite the well known fact that the Edappadi Palaniswamy -led AIADMK was very reluctant to be identified with the central rulingparty. Being a quintessential Dravidian (Tamil) party, the AIADMK found it difficult to be bracketed with the BJP with its “Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan” motto.

The AIADMK had fought the 2021 State Assembly elections in alliance with the BJP but lost to the DMK winning only 66 seats as against the DMK’s tally of 133 seats. The AIADMK jettisoned the BJP before facing the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. But still it could not win a single seat.

Though the AIADMK had pressing political reasons not to walk into the BJP camp again, it was in dire straits politically and needed a helping hand to win a few seats and be in the game. The AIADMK was indeed fighting for survival. It was divided between two leaders -Edappadi Palaniswamy and O.Panneer Selvam. Another section had gone out with T.T.K.Dinakaran. Its icon and legendary crowd puller, J.Jayalalitha, had died in 2016 orphaning the party. Power went out of its hands in 2021 and it has had no electoral victories since then to draw comfort from.

On the other hand, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) under Chief Minister M.K.Stalin had remained united despite being out of power since 2016. It was firmly backed by an alliance comprising the Congress, the two Communist parties, the Muslim League and a few other progressive outfits.

The grit with which the DMK-led alliance faced the visible power of the BJP earned the admiration of the Tamils. On March 25 2018, the DMK held a state-wide conference in Erode at which Stalin released the following slogans for his party cadres - “Let us crush the power pile (at the Centre) ; Let us protect humanity from extremism; Let us grow a prosperous Tamil Nadu”.

Stalin formed the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) with the Congress, the communists and the Muslim League. The SPA won the 2019 parliamentary elections bagging 38 out of 39 Tamil Nadu seats in parliament. The SPA won the 2021 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election also, bagging 159 seats out of 234 seats with 46% vote share.

After coming to power, the DMK did not compromise with the BJP government at the Centre. Unlike the AIADMK, the DMK fiercely opposed the central government’s efforts to push its centralizing and uniformalising agenda through the National Education Policy (NEP), imposition of the iniquitous National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET), imposition of Hindi through the Three-Language Formula and through efforts to lower Tamil Nadu’s representation in parliament by an unfair de-limitation of constituencies.

The DMK regime did not bend even when New Delhi denied it over Rs 2000 crore that was its legitimate due for improving school education in the State.

In contrast, on all these key policy issues, the AIADMK was pusillanimous, even as the DMK government took the battle to the Centre and the judiciary. The AIADMK did not take a vocal stand against Governor R.N.Ravi, who had sat on 10 bills passed by the State Assembly.

It was due to the DMK’s efforts, that the Supreme Court finally declared that the Governor’s conduct was illegal and deemed the bills as sanctioned. The DMK-led alliance now proposes to go to the Supreme Court to get exemption for Tamil Nadu from the iniquitous NEET All India entrance exam for medical courses.

The Tamil Nadu BJP, under its vocal leader A.Annamalai, has been carrying out street campaigns exposing “wide spread corruption running into thousands of crores,” and the “bad” law and order situation under the DMK regime.

But the impact has not gone beyond media coverage. The NDA failed to win a single seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections despite Annamalai’s high decibel campaign.

The launch of a special train to Kashi and placing a Sengol and a Veena in the new parliament had no resonance with non-Brahmin Tamils whose practices and cultural symbols are different. Tokenism in the promotion of Tamil was deservedly rejected.

The issues upper-most in the mind of the majority of Tamils are the threat to the secular, democratic and federal character of the Constitution and the imposition of Hindi. On these issues, the BJP has a totally different take and the AIADMK remains wishy washy.

However, there is still a ray of hope for the BJP-AIADMK alliance going by the performance of the NDA in the 2021 Assembly elections. If the AIADMK and BJP are able to rope in the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), the Naam Tamilar Katchi and the new party floated by Actor Vijay, they could come within striking distance of the DMK-led alliance.

But the PMK is now split between Dr.Ramadoss and his son Dr. Ambumani. The Naam Tamilar Katchi led by Seeman has no firm policies. Actor Vijay’s views on issues remain a mystery.

Overall, ethnic, social justice and States ‘rights issues are as dominant in the Tamils‘ minds as they were during the Lok Sabha elections which the DMK alliance swept. In fact, there are more such issues which are tormenting the Tamil voter.

The recent Supreme Court strictures against the authoritarian State Governor R.N.Ravi are a shot in the arm for the DMK-led alliance, brightening its chances of coming back to power if it does not bungle between now and April 2026.