A day after Amit Shah sealed a pre-poll alliance with the Shiv Sena, the BJP's oldest ally, in Maharashtra, the saffron party chief was expected to formalise a tie-up with the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday.
However, Shah's visit to Chennai was cancelled at the last moment, but the AIADMK is still confident of the alliance fructifying as Railway Minister Piyush Goyal will be visiting Chennai on Tuesday. Goyal has been the key interlocutor for the planned alliance with the AIADMK and smaller parties in Tamil Nadu and had held talks last week with the party leaders at the residence of a businessman in Chennai.
The PMK of Dr Ramadoss and the DMDK of filmstar-turned-politician Vijayakanth are also being courted to join the AIADMK-BJP alliance. Shah's visit was cancelled as Ramadoss was adamant on the number of seats his party wanted to fight.
Goyal will hold further parleys in Chennai on Tuesday at a private hotel with senior AIADMK leaders, including Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam. Ramadoss and his son, former UPA minister Anbumani Ramadoss, have already arrived at the hotel and were welcomed by Palaniswami and Panneerselvam.
The proposed BJP-AIADMK alliance marks a turning point in Tamil Nadu politics following the death of then chief minister J. Jayalalithaa in late 2016. The BJP has been perceived to have been arm-twisting the AIADMK as differences had existed in the Dravidian party about plans for a tie-up. Senior AIADMK leaders like Thambidurai had claimed the BJP would be unwanted “baggage” for the AIADMK.
The prospects for a BJP-AIADMK alliance started looking up after the New Year began, with some ministers of the Palaniswami government reaching out to the saffron party for a tie-up. Ministers P. Thankamani, Velumani and Panneerselvam were seen to be in favour of a tie-up, while Palaniswami still had reservations due to differences of opinion in the AIADMK.
Panneerselvam, in particular, was keen on getting back into the “good books” of the Central government. Panneerselvam had grown close to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the factional struggle in the AIADMK and had held several personal meetings with Modi.
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Though Modi had visited Tamil Nadu twice in recent weeks, he was not able to publicly talk about an alliance as talks were still going on.
The AIADMK-BJP alliance is also expected to have smaller parties like the Puthiya Tamilagam, Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi of SRM founder T.R. Pachamuthu and the Puthiya Needhi Katchi.
The planned AIADMK-BJP tie-up is expected to pose a formidable challenge to the DMK-Congress alliance, which had been eyeing a 'cakewalk'. DMK chief M.K. Stalin had supported Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to be prime minister at a rally in Chennai in December, but he will now need to fight harder once the new AIADMK-BJP alliance is in place.