Will AIADMK Be Forced to Side With BJP, Or Stand Its Ground in TN?

AIADMK may just be forced to side with BJP in Tamil Nadu seeing that its rival, the DMK, has Congress’s backing.

Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter / The Quint)

The AIADMK leadership, which meekly surrendered to the BJP after Jayalalithaa’s demise, is playing a hard bargain, and has even threatened to refuse an alliance with the saffron party, that is the BJP.

Over the last two years, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu has been perceived as the ‘B’ team of the Bharatiya Janata Party. With no leader of stature to succeed Jayalalithaa (who passed away in December 2016), the AIADMK held on to power in the state, largely because of support from the central government.

The party split into two factions – one led by Chief Minister E Palanisamy and another led by TTV Dhinakaran – and the state governor’s actions seemed skewed to help the ruling dispensation survive floor tests in the State assembly and hold on to a majority of the MLAs.

AIADMK Turns It Back on BJP

As a quid pro quo in parliament, AIADMK MPs openly helped the BJP manage the floors in both houses. Opposition leaders even alleged that AIADMK MPs behaved like “stooges” of the BJP and disrupted the house when it suited the ruling party. This is why it’s interesting that the AIADMK leadership, for the first time since Jayalalithaa’s death, is asserting itself, and even threatening to refuse an alliance with the BJP in the 2019 polls.

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On 17 January, the Deputy Lok Sabha speaker (who is a senior AIADMK leader) said, “We will not carry any other party on our back and help them gain a foothold in the state”. He further added that, “It is not our duty to nurture the BJP in Tamil Nadu”.

This comment comes in the backdrop of other recent exchanges between the BJP state unit and the ruling dispensation. A few days ago, the state’s information minister Kadambur C Raju had declared that the “lotus would never bloom in the state”. In fact, the party leadership has categorically stated that it cannot decide on an alliance without consulting with all sections.

Are these comments just part of the AIADMK pushing for a hard bargain? It could well be the case, but it also reflects certain harsh realities.

AIADMK Would Want Top Position In Alliance With BJP

Firstly, it is a clear indication that even if an alliance was forged in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK would demand the lead role and give the BJP only a small number of seats. In other words, it will not be a pushover like the BJP expects it to be.

In the past three decades, national parties have often played second fiddle to the two major Dravidian parties, and national leaders have campaigned under the shadow of M Karunanidhi or J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu.

The AIADMK may not have a leader of stature in the present context, but it would like to assert itself as the party that leads the alliance.

BJP’s Only Hope in TN Is Alliance With AIADMK

Secondly, 2019 will be the first election in over three decades in the absence of both Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, and the AIADMK assertions certainly demolish the BJP’s desire to take a leadership role over a weakened ruling dispensation, that is desperate to stay in power. In other words, it cannot be a campaign solely revolving around the prime minister and his persona, where the AIADMK loses its independent identity.

The BJP by itself has a negligible base in the state, and its only hope is to forge an alliance with the AIADMK, unite all factions and then try to woo smaller parties into the fold.

Hence, the power equations are in favour of the regional party. If such an alliance does not take shape the BJP will have no hope to even make an attempt at any of the 40 parliamentary seats – 39 in Tamil Nadu and 1 in Pondicherry.

In this backdrop, the fact that the BJP has been portrayed by the opposition DMK-Congress alliance, as a party that has destroyed core Dravidian values of secularism and social justice, makes its position weaker.

To Rattle Cong-DMK, AIADMK May Side With BJP

In fact, a section of the AIADMK’s leadership strongly feels that going with the BJP under the prime minister's leadership would only create a backlash against it, and the AIADMK will be seen as a party that sided with a political force that is not in sync with Tamil Nadu’s political legacy.

While the AIADMK and the DMK have allied with the BJP in the past – the DMK was part of the NDA between 1999 and 2004 and the AIADMK was with the BJP in 1998 and 2004 elections – in the last decade neither Dravidian party has agreed to an open alliance with the BJP.

One reason is that, going with the BJP, especially under the leadership of Prime Minster Modi, will alienate minorities. The other is the fact that the Congress and Left parties have a small, but widespread vote base in the state, that bolsters the arithmetic of an alliance, but going with the BJP has no such benefits.

In the end, the AIADMK may be forced to side with the BJP only because the Congress is firmly with the DMK, its regional opponent. But it will take the side on its terms, and demand much more space and seats than the BJP would have hoped to concede.

(The writer is an independent journalist. He can be reached @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. )