Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Chennai is expected to make a political churn in the state. Shah will arrive in Chennai on Thursday night by a special aircraft from Delhi to discuss the alliance possibilities in the run-up to the assembly elections in 2026. He will be staying at a private hotel in Chennai, where all the discussions and private meetings are scheduled to take place.
Shah, according to highly placed sources, is expected to hold marathon meetings with the leaders in the state unit of the BJP. With Annamalai’s exit from the state chief's post, it is almost certain that Shah will pick the new BJP chief, according to sources.
Meanwhile, the AIADMK leadership has asked the party seniors to be available in Chennai for the next three days, even when the government has declared a five-day break for the assembly budget session due to continuous holidays. AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, who mostly spends time in his home town Salem is also available in Chennai. Sources say he is likely to call on Shah at the private hotel where he is staying.
In a recent interview with an English news channel, Shah made it clear that the BJP is in talks with the AIADMK to bring the latter back into the NDA fold. Palaniswami, along with the party seniors, had also called on Shah in Delhi, a week before. Though he did not confirm anything openly on the alliance, AIADMK senior leader K.A. Sengottaiyan had called on Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Delhi and also in Chennai. He met with Shah as well. The 77-year-old Sengottaiyan, a senior leader of the AIADMK known to be a staunch Jayalalithaa loyalist, has been in the news recently for his reported differences with Palaniswami. The differences between Palaniswami and Sengottaiyan, who hail from the same Gounder community in West Tamil Nadu, came out in the open when the latter boycotted an event hosted by the farmers, at Annur near Coimbatore, to felicitate the former.
“I met Shah in the interests of the party,” Sengottaiyan told THE WEEK. But he is of the opinion that the party leadership will decide on the AIADMK-BJP alliance. When asked about his meetings with Sitharaman, he said it was to represent an issue concerning GST.
However, sources say the BJP which has already decided to bring the AIADMK back into the NDA will ensure yet another split if Palaniswami continues to be non-committal on alliance. Though Sengottaiyan is not for floating his own faction or going on a DharmaYuth like O Panneerselvam, BJP has worked out all permutations and combinations to ensure a victory in Tamil Nadu.
With silent anger and anti-incumbency building up against the ruling DMK, the BJP has worked out strategies to fight the elections either with the AIADMK or by breaking the AIADMK. “They are trying to arm-twist our leader and strike a deal. Sengottaiyan has turned to be the bargaining lever. He is already with the BJP,” a senior AIADMK leader told THE WEEK on conditions of anonymity.
He said the cadres or even the second rank leaders, except those in the west Tamil Nadu, are not for an alliance with the AIADMK. “Have you seen a party cadre bursting crackers for coming out of a nationally powerful alliance anywhere in India? Our cadres did that when it was announced in a district secretaries meeting. But now Palaniswami is doing this because his family is caught in a foreign exchange case,” the leader said.
Within the BJP too, the high command is expected to bring in changes, by replacing Annamalai with new faces. Sources say Ananthan Ayyasamy, a technocrat who is considered to be close to Zoho chairman Sridhar Vembu is a probable name in the list. Vembu had reportedly called on Sitharaman, a few days before when she was in Chennai. Ayyasamy is the Tenkasi district secretary of the BJP and also a staunch Annamalai loyalist in the party. The other probable name on the list is BJP legislative party leader Nainar Nagendran, who was a minister under Jayalalithaa between 2001 and 2006.
Meanwhile, the BJP is planning to take on the DMK with all its might—using the investigating agencies in the Centre. The ED raids at the places linked to minister K.N. Nehru, his MP son Arun Nehru and his brother K.N.Ravichandran; the raids at Tamil Nadu state owned liquor retailer TASMAC are part of BJP’s Tamil Nadu operation. Highly placed sources say the Delhi leadership of the BJP with TASMAC raids is looking for an equivalent of Delhi’s alleged liquor scam and make a Kejriwal out of M.K. Stalin. Highly placed sources say the DMK leadership is much aware of the “short-term tactics and all sorts of antics” likely to be played by the BJP.