The BJP in Tamil Nadu managed to get Kongunadu Jananayaga Katchi, an outfit promoted by the powerful Gounder community in south west Tamil Nadu. According to GK Nagaraj, KJK president, the party would contest in two seats in the upcoming Assembly election in the State scheduled for May 16.
The KJK has been an ally of the PMK, the Vanniyar outfit, being led by S Ramadoss. “Ramadoss told us that the alliance was off as he wanted to project the PMK as a secular outfit san any caste affiliation. The PMK is going solo and we had no options other than joining the BJP,” Nagaraj told The Pioneer over telephone from Coimbatore.
Nagaraj, an engineer by profession, had been an ally of the AIADMK in the 2014 lok Sabha election. The KJK is the only party with mass base in the region to align with the Hindutwa party for the Assembly election. The IJK, described as the major ally of the BJP, has been given 42 seats though the party represents the interests of the Udayar community, which constitute hardly four per cent of the Tamil Nadu population.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s Tamil Nadu in charge, Prakash Javadekar, launched his election campaign in Chennai on Sunday with a broadside against both the AIADMK and the DMK. “Both the AIADMK and the DMK presented corruption full bad governance while Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands for corruption free good governance,” Javadekar said while addressing an election rally soliciting votes for Tamilissai Sounderarajan, the Tamil Nadu BJP president who is contesting from Virugambakkam constituency, a Chennai suburb.
Javadekar also charged that the Dravidian majors were fooling the people of Tamil Nadu. “The rice which is being distributed as Amma Rice is the same which is given to the Tamil Nadu Government by the Narendra Modi Government. But the AIADMK Government has labelled it as Amma Rice and fooling the people of the State,” charged the Union Minister.
Jayalalithaa is addressing an election rally on Monday at nearby Tiruvallur district. She has refrained from attacking the BJP all these days though senior leaders of the BJP has been criticising Amma quite frequently.