BJP Needs Much More Than AIADMK to Make Any Impact in TN

Given BJP’s marginal presence in TN and the fact that AIADMK is split into factions, can an alliance make an impact?

The BJP has firmed up an alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.

(Photo: Rhythum Seth/ The Quint)

It’s official. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has firmed up an alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu. PMK has also been taken on board. But, given the marginal presence the BJP has in the southern state and the fact that the AIADMK is split into factions, can the alliance make any significant impact?

Firstly, the alliance the BJP has struck is with the ruling dispensation in Tamil Nadu and it seems unlikely that the other AIADMK faction – led by TTV Dhinakaran who split from the parent party after the demise of J Jayalalithaa – would consider closing ranks with the ruling faction. The dispute between the two factions is bitter and each would like to use the 2019 parliamentary election to establish its credibility as the successor to J Jayalalithaa.

If the AIADMK vote is split down the middle, it may be a situation where the fight is over for the alliance before it even starts. This is because the BJP, by itself, has only a pocketed presence in two or three constituencies: Coimbatore in western and Kanyakumari in southern Tamil Nadu, in the state, and even here it cannot win on its own and needs the AIADMK vote base to transfer completely to its candidates.

The Results of Previous Alliances

In 2014, the BJP had forged an alliance with a few small regional parties and polled just 5.5 percent votes to win one seat, whereas the AIADMK went on its own to win 37 seats with a 44.3 percent of votes. The BJP has never won a seat in Tamil Nadu without an alliance and its best performance is a tally of four seats in the 1999 general elections when it was in an alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

It was part of an alliance with the late J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK in 1998 and won three seats; the alliance, which had several other smaller parties, won 30 of the 39 seats in the state. But in 2004, when the BJP allied with the AIADMK, after walking out of an alliance with the DMK just before the elections, the two parties, without any other smaller regional force, drew a blank.

This data, accrued from past elections, shows that without the AIADMK vote transferring completely to the BJP, the party stands no chance in the state and that, apart from the AIADMK vote, it may need a few other smaller regional forces to stand a chance.

In this scenario, it must be pointed out here that the demise of Jayalalithaa and the anti-incumbency faced by the ruling dispensation are certain to bring the AIADMK 2014 vote share down. The only question is by how much; a split in this depleted vote share will destroy any prospects for the alliance.

Why the BJP-AIADMK Alliance Alone May Not Work

On the other hand, the 2014 election, in the backdrop of the 2G scam, was the worst ever election for the DMK and their vote share dropped to 23.6 percent, resulting in a complete rout in terms of seats. The Congress fought on its own and polled just 4.3 percent vote share. In 2019, the DMK-Congress combine has certainly recovered from that nadir and is hoping to return to its 2009 performance of 44 percent vote share, at the least.

This would mean that even a 10 percent drop in AIADMK vote from 2014 would tilt the scales firmly in favour of the DMK-Congress alliance.

Hence, the arithmetic of the BJP-AIADMK alone may have no serious impact and the BJP will have to make a serious effort to enlist other smaller regional parties to join the alliance, especially the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMDK).

These two parties, especially the PMK, could bolster the alliance in northern Tamil Nadu’s Vanniyar caste belt, but would demand a large chunk of seats. The onus would be on the BJP to play negotiator and convince the AIADMK to part with seats.

Given that the ruling AIADMK dispensation had played a hard bargain with the BJP and has refused to part with more than 6 seats (final decision yet to be taken), it may be a challenge to convince it to be generous with other regional parties.

Further, the smaller parties have been asserting themselves and they may not be ready to accept an AIADMK without J Jayalalithaa in the leadership role. This makes the task more difficult for the BJP to weave an alliance.

In the end, even if the BJP manages to build a larger alliance and unite the AIADMK factions, the number of seats where it can put up a serious challenge will be limited to 5 or 6 and the BJP’s own chances will be in just one or two seats.

These are the only seats where they can throw a serious challenge, not where they are assured of a win and, as of today, the DMK-Congress alliance is eyeing all 39 seats in the state and one in Puducherry, like it did in 2004 when the BJP broke away from the DMK on the eve of the elections and shifted to an alliance with J Jayalalithaa.

(The author is an independent journalist. He can be reached at @TMVRaghav. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)