EPS blows poll bugle at AIADMK general council; DMK calls it ploy 'to hide fear'

In a fiery speech that lasted over an hour at the AIADMK General Council meeting held at a marriage hall in Vanagaram on the outskirts of Chennai on Wednesday (December 10), the party’s General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) declared that the alliance led by the Opposition party would storm back to power by winning 210 seats in the 2026 Assembly elections due in a few months.

“Nobody needs to have any doubt. We have appointed our own election analysts. We know our arithmetic. In the next election, the AIADMK alliance will win 210 seats,” Palaniswami, who is also the state’s Leader of Opposition, thundered.

Launching a blistering attack on the ruling DMK, he said the MK Stalin government came to power by announcing 525 attractive promises but has not implemented even a fourth of them.

Also read: AIADMK's fragile unity tested as EPS battles SC challenge, BJP pressure for reunification

“Education loan waiver? Not done. Gas cylinder subsidy? Missing. Reduction in petrol-diesel prices? Nowhere. NEET exemption? They said there is a ‘secret’ – the deputy chief minister (Udhayanidhi Stalin) knows the secret but has not revealed it till date,” EPS said.

EPS says AIADMK alliance has grown since 2019

The AIDMK chief also tried to project in his speech that the alliance led by his party has grown in the state since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, to quell “doubts” in the mind of his party’s own district secretaries.

EPS claimed that had the separate vote shares of the AIADMK and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general elections were added (the parties were not in alliance then), the arithmetic would come to more than 41 per cent, translating into victories in at least 84 Assembly segments in the state, compared to 75 in the state polls in 2021, when the two were in alliance, and mere two segments in the 2019 general elections (they were in formal alliance then as well). Tamil Nadu sends 39 members to the Lok Sabha.

Also read: EPS calls Sengottaiyan ‘betrayer’, asserts AIADMK will sweep 2026 elections

“From two segments in 2019 to 84 segments now, this is the real growth. That is why I am saying with confidence: 210 seats in 2026,” he declared. The Tamil Nadu Assembly has 234 seats that are expected to go to polls in April and May next year.

NDA fared poorly in 2021 state polls

In the 2021 elections, the Secular Progressive Alliance led by the DMK swept the elections, winning 159 seats, while the National Democratic Alliance comprising the AIADMK, BJP and Pattali Makkal Katchi won only 75.

However, political observers said not all supporters were ecstatic over EPS’s projections. He did not say anything about prospective partners even while asserting that a “very strong alliance” would be formed for the upcoming electoral battle.

AIADMK's 'expelled leaders' conundrum

The leader also stopped short of naming expelled coordinator and former chief minister O Panneerselvam or former state minister C Ve Shanmugam in his speech. He did not give any hint as to whether the expelled leaders would be taken back into the party fold. For many, the stance constitutes more of a tactical diplomacy.

A resolution passed at the meeting stated that the general secretary himself would take the final decision on which parties would join the NDA in Tamil Nadu, a move which was interpreted as a clear message that neither Panneerselvam nor TTV Dhinakaran, another leader who the party had expelled, and who floated his own Amma Makkal Munnettra Kazagam (AMMK), would be accommodated in the decision-making, despite their recent meetings with former state BJP chief K Annamalai.

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Observers feel former state minister Shanmugam’s remark that “certain political brokers, who pretend to be our well-wishers, spoiled us in the last election” was seen by many as an indirect dig at the BJP supporters.

According to journalist Swaminathan, the NDA’s architecture remains its “biggest challenge”.

“Reuniting the NDA in its full form is indeed a massive hurdle,” he said.

However, as AIADMK supporters feel regrouping the party and its dissenting voices is necessary if they want to seriously challenge the DMK in the next polls, there may be efforts to see a reunion, even if indirectly and subtly.

Notably, OPS’s faction, which had adopted a lone-wolf stance ahead of his recent meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, now appears primed to rejoin the fold.

“It’s noteworthy that the OPS camp, once firm on going solo, is now ready to integrate back into the NDA,” Swaminathan added.

Also read: AIADMK joins DMK's plea in SC against SIR; 'truth must be told', EPS defends move

Speaking of the AIADMK’s apparent opacity over its coordination and alliance blueprint, Shyam, another senior journalist, said, “No concrete decisions on unification or partnerships were announced openly.”

However, the pivotal resolution vesting sole decision-making power in EPS on which parties join the NDA carries “immense weight,” he emphasised. It serves as a veiled signal amid ongoing parleys, with both OPS and Dhinakaran continuing to meet the state’s former BJP president, K Annamalai.

“This resolution implies there’s little chance of accommodating OPS or Dhinakaran in the coalition,” Shyam said, reading between the lines of the carefully worded text.

EPS's BJP unease

EPS’s growing unease with AIADMK functionaries’ direct engagements with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Annamalai, bypassing the party channels, also underscores a deepening rift.

“EPS clearly grasps that these interactions haven’t sat well with the rank and file,” he noted, alluding to murmurs of resentment over a perceived overreach by the saffron party.

Sources indicate New Delhi’s leadership is pressing EPS to fold in the splinter groups to consolidate the anti-DMK votes, viewing a divided AIADMK as a windfall for the ruling dispensation.

Also read: Mukkulathur vote war: How Thevar community became Tamil Nadu’s biggest political prize

OPS, backed by his influential Thevar community base, had exited the NDA in July over snubs during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, but his post-Shah overtures hint at a thaw.

Dhinakaran's AMMK, too, has been a BJP ally in past polls, though his barbs at EPS for “betraying” Sasikala complicate matters.

'Door slightly ajar for OPS, Dhinakaran'

A senior AIADMK leader, speaking anonymously, hinted at the general council’s tacit overtures, “The door is quietly ajar for OPS and Dhinakaran's return under the NDA umbrella, even if not straight into AIADMK’s core. Seat-sharing could allot them slots from the BJP’s quota.”

This aligns with the AIADMK-BJP pact of April, where Shah anointed EPS as the NDA’s chief ministerial face, but internal fractures persist.

DMK mocks AIADMK meet

DMK Organising Secretary R S Bharathi ridiculed the AIADMK meet as “make-up to hide EPS’s fear” and predicted another crushing defeat for Palaniswami in 2026. “The people of Tamil Nadu have identified him as a dummy. They will reject his whining,” Bharati said.

Observers say the road to 210 seats looks extraordinarily steep for the AIADMK. The party is still recovering from the 2021 drubbing, faces internal rebellion from the OPS camp, and the BJP’s growing assertiveness in seat-sharing talks adds to the uncertainty.