Sunday’s article in Namathu Puratchi Thalaivi Amma (Our Revolutionary leader Amma) the mouth-piece of the AIADMK, suggesting the coming together of Tamil Nadu’s ruling party and the BJP has come a cropper by Monday as leaders of the AIADMK themselves washed their hands off such a possibility.
“It was an article authored by a lower wrung party functionary. What he wrote was that the AIADMK and the BJP were working like double-barrelled gun and attempts by the DMK to create a wedge between the parties would not succeed,” said Maruthu Alaguraj, editor, NPTA. He said there was no mention anywhere in the article about a possible alliance between the AIADMK and the BJP.
He also pointed out that the AIADMK has been following the policy of party founder late M G Ramachandran that there should never be a stand-off with the Government at the Centre lest the economic development of Tamil Nadu suffers any set back. “Our Amma has been following the same guidelines throughout her tenure. Those who jump into conclusions that AIADMK would tie up with the BJP are conveniently forgetting the recent political history of Tamil Nadu,” said Alaguraj who was eased out of Namathu MGR, a daily controlled by the V K Sasikala family in August 2017 for criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP in one of the articles.
Senior AIADMK leaders pointed out that the AIADMK did not forge any kind of alliance with the BJP after the set back suffered in the 2004 lok Sabha elections. The AIADMK-BJP combine had to eat humble pie as the front failed to win at least one seat from Tamil Nadu in that election. Since then Jayalalithaa was wary about the repercussions of any kind of alliance with the BJP, a Hindutwa party.
The AIADMK leaders also said there were serious differences between them and the BJP. “The Triple Talaq Bill has been vehemently opposed by Anwahar Raja, the party MP from Ramanathapuram. Raja, the Islamic face of the AIADMK had made it known that he was against the Bill and it is unlikely that the AIADMK would extend support to a bill which would lead them to loss the minority votes.
The Church, which has considerable presence in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu had issued a pastoral letter during the 2016 assembly elections exhorting the laity not to vote for parties which were in alliance with the BJP.
“Alliances are to be decided only at the time of election. Moreover nobody uses double barrelled guns nowadays. A single barrelled gun is sufficient to cause damages,” said Thambi Durai, deputy speaker of the lok Sabha who is the national face of the AIADMK.
Political observers in Tamil Nadu point out that Jayalalithaa was against forging any kind of alliance with the BJP after her major setback in the 2004 lok Sabha election. “Though she shared good personal rapport with the likes of Narendra Modi and lK Advani, Jayalalithaa was against any kind of poll alliance with the BJP,” said G Satyamoorthy, veteran commentator. He also said that the BJP has seen the writing on the wall and would not dare to commit political hara-kiri. “There are talks about BJP forging alliance with the outfit to be launched by Rajnikant,” said Satyamoorthy. He said that the AiADMK may be seeking favours from the BJP to save some of their leaders from corruption cases.
Alaguraj said NPTA would carry a clarification in Tuesday’s edition of the paper.