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K Annamalai will be accommodated as a senior functionary in the national BJP hierarchy for now, living to fight another day
Union home minister Amit Shah with K Annamalai and Edappadi K Palaniswami in Chennai. (Photo: X/AmitShah)
A week is a long time in politics. On April 3, all four AIADMK MPs in the Rajya Sabha voted against the Waqf Amendment Bill, a signature legislation of the Narendra Modi government. Now, on April 11, Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami (EPS) sat next to union home minister Amit Shah in Chennai, where an alliance was announced.
Two key assurances from the Bharatiya Janata Party led to the change of heart for AIADMK, top sources say. One was AIADMK’s bête noire, K Annamalai, making way for Nainar Nagendran as the BJP state chief, an issue over which the parting took place in 2023 when the saffron party did not relent. Two was the BJP’s assurance from the top that delimitation won’t hurt Tamil Nadu’s interests and was anyway at least three or four years away, as even the next census would take three years to be published. The BJP also decided to keep at arm’s length the EPS baiters, Sasikala and TTV. Dhinakaran.
It is the BJP’s strategy of stooping to conquer, something that left even the DMK stumped, as it thought the AIADMK wouldn’t ally with the saffron party given the atmosphere MK Stalin has built in the state over “Hindi imposition” and delimitation. But many in the BJP knew the “importance” of stopping Stalin’s march and were apprehensive over his recent moves to rally opposition political forces. A senior BJP leader pointed out to CNN-News18 that while the INDIA bloc has not been able to hold a meeting after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Stalin managed to organise a gathering of opposition leaders.
An AIADMK-BJP alliance gives the NDA a hold in at least three regions of the state and swathes of rural Tamil Nadu, plus a chance to encash anti-incumbency against the DMK on account of “corruption” and “failing law and order”. A senior BJP leader conceded that not allying with the AIADMK would mean giving a “walkover” to the DMK in the next year’s elections. The DMK has historically always fallen prey to anti-incumbency in state elections since 1972.
Annamalai will be accommodated as a senior functionary in the national BJP hierarchy for now, living to fight another day.
