'When Amit Shah...': K Annamalai Snaps At AIADMK In Tamil Nadu Pre-Poll Row

Three months (and six days) into the AIADMK-BJP alliance for next year's Tamil Nadu election and there is already a storm brewing. On Wednesday AIADMK boss Edappadi K Palaniswami declared the state will have a single-party government - his - if the alliance is voted to power.

Tamil Nadu BJP leader K Annamalai hit back Thursday afternoon.

He repeated Union Home Minister Amit Shah's assertion that Tamil Nadu, if it votes for the opposition alliance, will be ruled by a coalition and that BJP will - for the first time ever - have a role in governing a state that has historically rejected its brand of muscular nationalism.

"When Amit Shah reiterates a coalition government, I can't take a different stand," Mr Annamalai, sacked as the BJP's state boss in April after ties with AIADMK deteriorated, said.

"If the AIADMK has a difference of opinion, or if there is some miscommunication, they can hold talks with Amit Shah and come to a conclusion," he told reporters, subtly shifting the onus to maintain the alliance back on the AIADMK by demanding they sort out internal issues.

Mr Annamalai also defended reports the BJP will claim ministerial berths if the alliance can defeat the ruling DMK and its allies, which include the Congress. "Every party, including the PMK (a regional allied party) is demanding a share in power. Why target the BJP alone?"

A retired police officer-turned-politician, his remarks follow a firm declaration by Mr Palaniswami, popularly called EPS. "Our alliance will win... but the AIADMK will form the government on its own," he said, "It is the AIADMK that leads... the BJP has clarified this."

EPS' statement followed reports of unease over pre-poll power-sharing talks, i.e., the BJP wants a share in the government in the southern state and the AIADMK, acutely aware of the national party's lack of traction with voters, particularly those from minorities, is reluctant to play along.

READ | "Our Alliance Will Win But...": AIADMK Warns BJP Before Tamil Nadu Poll

Whether these rumours are just that and the alliance will hold, at least till the election, is unclear. The BJP and the AIADMK did contest the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly elections together but lost both, and the fallout of those defeats carried over for the next couple of years.

That fallout included Mr Annamalai needling the AIADMK over iconic past leaders until the Tamil party walked out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. The two parties contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election separately but, again, were thumped by the DMK.

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And so, in April, they announced a re-alliance for next year's election. Mr Annamalai, who has in the past maintained the BJP should go solo in Tamil Nadu, has distanced himself from all this.

"I didn't have any role in forming the alliance. I only defend what Amit Shah said."

Either way, this week's grumblings have underlined the uneasy relationship between the BJP and the AIADMK, and their different (and starkly misaligned) visions of power-sharing.

For the BJP, the 2026 election is another shot at cracking a state that (with Kerala) has defied the saffron brigade in the past, and particularly since 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. For EPS, though, the stakes are higher, because the AIADMK has now lost three straight major elections since he took over after former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's death.

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