BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit announced on Monday that it would contest the upcoming urban local body polls alone, parting ways with ally AIADMK. However, the alliance is intact for the 2024 general elections, state BJP chief K Annamalai has insisted to the media.
BJP’s announcement comes close on the heels of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court transferring to the CBI the Thanjavur girl’s suicide case, which has had the two allies at odds.
A Class 12 student in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur died in hospital earlier this month after an attempt to commit suicide, allegedly because of harassment from her hostel warden. Later, reports about the girl being forced to convert to Christianity surfaced when a video clip in this connection went viral. The Christian missionary-run school has denied the charges.
BJP’s Annamalai took up a campaign alleging that the girl died “following attempted religious conversion”.
Ally AIADMK, meanwhile, distanced itself from the BJP’s stance, apparently wanting to stay away from communal politics.
Matters became worse when BJP legislator Nainar Nagendran commented on the leadership of the AIADMK during a protest held by the saffron party in Chennai to seek justice for the deceased girl. Nagendran said AIADMK leaders lacked “manliness”, which upset the BJP ally.
The breakdown of seat-sharing talks between the two parties come in this backdrop.
A miffed AIADMK played hardball in allocation of seats to the BJP for the February 19 local polls. The BJP had reportedly asked for 50 per cent of seats initially, and came down to 20 per cent. But the AIADMK was not ready to allocate more than 5 per cent of seats.
Also read: Madras HC orders CBI probe into Thanjavur girl’s suicide
“It will be a colossal blunder if the AIADMK and BJP go together for campaigning after all the criticism the latter has made on the former. It was because of the comment of Nagendran that the AIADMK was reluctant to give more seats to the BJP,” said Pongalur Manikandan, a political commentator.
He added: “Breaking the alliance with the BJP for the local body polls is good for the AIADMK. But we cannot expect that in the 2024 elections, the AIADMK will shed its ties with the party.”
Annamalai himself told the media said that the alliance would continue in the 2024 elections.
“We decided to break the alliance only for the urban local body polls, because we wanted to give opportunity to our cadre. In the first round of the seat-sharing talks, the AIADMK had provided us with 10 per cent seats, but we didn’t get the seats we wanted. Our ally was not in a position to accommodate seats according to our demands,” he explained.
The BJP leader further said the claim that Nagendran’s comment was the reason behind the break-up of talks was untrue.
Former AIADMK minister D Jayakumar countered Annamalai and said that the party can share seats with the BJP only after ensuring that the sharing does not affect the welfare of its own cadre.
“BJPs decision of choosing to contest the elections on its own was their wish and there is nothing to comment on that. With regard to the remarks of Nagendran, he apologised for what he said after we condemned it,” Jayakumar said.