AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu opposition leader Edappadi K Palanisami is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Madurai on April 6, during which the revival of the alliance talks between the two parties is expected to come up. The AIADMK has been warming up with the BJP and has reopened its alliance talks in the run-up to the ensuing 2026 assembly general elections in Tamil Nadu.
Palanisami’s visit to Delhi with his party colleagues and his meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah created a buzz in Tamil Nadu on the AIADMK renewing its alliance with the BJP and getting back into the NDA fold. The Dravidian party which was part of the BJP-led alliance since 2017, broke away from the NDA in 2023 before the Lok Sabha election. The alliance talks between the two was confirmed by Amit Shah during a television interview.
But the AIADMK is non-committal about its plans to tie up with the BJP looking at the other options available to float a “mega alliance”. The party founded by MGR has lost its strength with its vote share falling continuously after the death of Jayalalithaa. It had close to 34 per cent vote share which came down to 18 per cent in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election. The factional feud within the party, the party losing its strength in the southern districts, the domination by its leaders from the western districts, and Palanisami’s idea of announcing a 10.5 per cent internal reservation for Vanniyars in the northern districts are sighted as the major reasons for AIADMK’s fall.
Palanisami who was firm on “not aligning with the BJP”, sources say, has decided to get back into the NDA fold, as most of the former ministers and his family are caught in a slew of corruption cases. A few months before the Income tax sleuths conducted searches at the premises of his son’s father-in-law’s entities. Also one of this close aides ‘Salem’ Elangovan is in the ED radar for the past few years.
With the intention of forming a formidable alliance, the AIADMK, under Palanisami, had explored alliance possibilities with actor Vijay’s fledgling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) before warming up with the BJP. The talks with TVK broke down after Vijay and his party came up with several conditions on alliance equations and power sharing. Multiple sources told The Week that the demands by TVK were unacceptable to the AIADMK. TVK demanded that Vijay should be announced as the chief minister candidate and out of the 234 assembly segments his party will contest in 50 per cent of the seats, paving way for power sharing. “We are a party with a track record and have ruled the state for over 30 years. His demands were unrealistic," a senior AIADMK leader in Chennai told The Week.
However, TVK sources said that Vijay did not have confidence in Palanisami as he had his own apprehensions if the AIADMK would go with the BJP. "We were not confident about dealing with the AIADMK. They weren’t promising," a senior leader who joined TVK recently told The Week.
"Everything will be made clear when our leader meets Modi in Madurai. The alliance will be announced," a senior AIADMK leader told The Week.
