Alliance With BJP Led to AIADMK Defeat, Key Tamil Nadu Leader Admits

C Ve Shanmugam has said that AIADMK lost a sizeable chunk of minorities votes because of its alliance with the BJP.

AIADMK leader C Ve Shanmugham accused the BJP of costing the party dearly. 

(Photo: Twitter)

In a first, a key leader of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Khazhagam (AIADMK), the principal Opposition party in Tamil Nadu, has openly admitted that the party's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) caused its defeat in the 2021 Legislative Assembly elections.

On Tuesday, 6 July, former Law minister of TN and AIADMK leader, C Ve Shanmugam said the alliance with the BJP had cost the AIADMK dearly and resulted in its poor showing in the last Assembly elections, The Hindu reported.

Addressing a meeting of party workers at Vanur, Shanmugam said that the AIADMK lost a sizeable chunk of minorities votes because of its alliance with the BJP.

'Lost Minority Votes Due to Alliance With BJP'

Referring to Villupuram Assembly constituency, he said the assembly segment had about 20,000 minority voters including 18,000 in Villupuram town alone. However, the party lost the support of minorities due to its alliance with the BJP, he said.

Shanmugam felt that the erstwhile AIADMK government had implemented several welfare schemes in the last 10 years and had earned a good name among the people.

They (people) too wanted this government to continue. However, all calculations went wrong due to a combination of factors including alliance and minority votes

C. Ve Shanmugam, Former State Minister and AIADMK Leader

“If this [alliance] was not the case, the DMK would not have been in power today. Even if they had accidentally come to power, it would have only been a coalition government,” he contended.

He also appealed to the party workers not to believe that people had given overwhelming support to the DMK.

Alliance Beneficial for BJP

Although, political observers and members of the DMK have earlier pointed out that AIADMK lost the election only because of its alliance with the saffron party, this is perhaps the first time, a key leader of the party is admitting it.

While it is clear that the AIADMK's fortunes in Tamil Nadu fizzled after it tied up with BJP, the alliance interestingly worked in favour of the latter.

In 2016 Assembly elections when AIADMK was not in alliance with the BJP it won 136 seats out of the 234 and its seat share was 40.88 percent.

However, after aligning with the BJP during 2021 Assembly elections, the AIADMK won just 66 seats and its vote share reduced to 33. 29 percent

Meanwhile, when BJP contested the elections without aligning with the AIADMK in 2016 Assembly election, it could not even win a single seat out of the 234 seats it contested. And its vote share was a mere 2.86 percent.

But after aligning with the AIADMK in 2021 assembly elections, it got four seats – Nagercoil, Tirunelveli, Modakurichi and Coimbatore South, out of the 20 it contested. Its vote share was 2.62 percent.