With actor-politician Vijay gaining strength through his people outreach programme on Saturdays, seems to have shaken the political equations in the state. While the ruling DMK has decided to not to reply to Vijay, even when he is pitching himself as the primary opponent, the BJP which is on a shaky alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu has devised a seven-phase roadmap, ahead of the 2026 general elections to strengthen the party and the NDA.
The Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP has called for a multiphase political strategy with an aim to strengthen the party at the grassroots and also consolidate the NDA. The seven-phase road map is a combination of several people outreach programmes by way of protests and rallies, strengthening the booth-level party and also bringing in more parties into the NDA fold.
The BJP will soon launch a new campaign titled, ‘Makkaludan BJP’ meaning BJP with the people. The BJP is also planning to organise a series of protests for 55 days from October 5 to November 30. The protests will focus on local issues in each constituency from bad roads to illegal mining and civic problems. The first phase of the strategy is however to strengthen the party at the booth level by establishing a strong infrastructure. The second phase will be a statewide rally undertaken by Nagenthran and the fourth phase will be mass rallies across Tamil Nadu with senior leaders from Delhi, including Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah addressing it.
And after this in the fifth phase will be consolidating the NDA, while sixth phase will be seat-sharing talks and the seventh will be candidate selection in the run up to the election.
Annamalai meets Dhinakaran
While Nagenthran went all the way to Delhi to call on party president J.P. Nadda and discuss the strategies, on the ground his predecessor Annamalai took efforts to reunite the NDA in Tamil Nadu. The NDA, which had the PMK, Dhinakaran’s AMMK, Dr. Krishnasami’s Puthiya Thamilagam, saw the exit of all the parties after AIADMK entered the alliance in April. While the PMK is fractured, the others have either quit the NDA or stayed silent. Annamalai on September 21 called on Dhinakaran at his residence at Besant Nagar in Chennai.
The meeting comes days after Annamalai said that he would urge T.T.V. Dhinakaran to reconsider his exit from the NDA. In fact, Dhinakaran once said that he shared a friendly rapport with Annamalai and that he was not comfortable with the present BJP chief Nainar Nagenthran. He even cited the attitude of Nagenthran as one of the reasons for quitting the NDA. He had said that he would reconsider getting back into the NDA fold if someone other than Edappadi K. Palaniswami was fielded as the chief minister candidate.
Apparently, Annamalai is the first leader from the BJP to have reached out to Dhinakaran after he walked out of the alliance. “My meeting with Dhinakaran has been transparent. I had already said that I would follow up on my phone calls by meeting him in person. Accordingly, I met him at his residence and urged him to reconsider his decision and rejoin the NDA,” Annamalai said. Dhinakaran and Annamalai, during the 45-minute meeting, discussed the current political situation while Annamalai heard Dhinakaran’s views. It is said that Annamalai also insisted on BJP’s aim to dethrone the DMK in the 2026 election. “We have been maintaining friendly ties. I am hopeful that he will come back. He has agreed to decide. Cordiality increases only when we meet frequently. There are no permanent friends or foes in politics. Alliances will change, and so too will leaders,” Annamalai said on Monday while speaking to the media.
He is also likely to meet O. Panneerselvam in the coming days to bring him back into the NDA. OPS had walked out of the NDA citing discomfort with Nagenthran and also because he did not get an audience with the PM Modi when the latter visited the Tiruchirapalli airport to go to Gangaikonda Cholapuram.
While OPS had already sent feelers to join the TVK, Dhinakaran had also sent signals that he wasn’t averse to join with the TVK in an alliance. “There are many political parties, many smaller parties, are in talks with us. Some of the rebel leaders have also reached out to us. Wait and watch close to the election. TVK is not an alternate force. We are the main force,” says one of the senior leaders in TVK. In fact, the TVK wants to float an alliance which will have fragments of the AIADMK and also some of DMK’s alliance partners.
BJP’s outreach programmes and the seven-phase plans can bring in fortunes only if the NDA gets consolidated in Tamil Nadu.