BJP will not have tie-up with corrupt parties, says TN party

BJP's Tamil Nadu unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan Monday said her party would never have an alliance with corrupt parties and expressed confidence that it would win 'considerable seats' from the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

BJP had not yet started the process on forming alliances for the elections and a decision would be taken at the appropriate time, she told reporters here.

The party which was ruling in 22 states would "definitely win considerable seats" in Tamil Nadu and would not enter into alliance with corrupt parties, she said replying to a question.

In a veiled dig at AMMK leader T T V Dhinakaran, she went on to add that BJP would certainly not have any tie up with those "who had given Rs 20 as token" to voters.

She was apparently referring to the allegations that Dhinakaran's supporters had distributed Rs 20 currency notes to the voters as tokens of future bribe money for voting for him in the RK Nagar by-election held in December last year.

Dhinakaran, who then won as an independent from the constituency held by late chief minister Jayalalithaa, has denied the charge of bribing voters.

On the national political scene, Soundararajan claimed none of the allies of Congress was willing to accept its president Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate.

"Rahul Gandhi lacks the mass appeal and not a match to Modi... people will not not accept him as prime minister," she maintained.

When asked whether BJP was playing politics with Lord Ram in the north and Lord Ayyappa in the south, she said building Ram temple in Ayodhya was the party's declared policy.

The party wanted the tradition (on bar on the entry of women in menstrual age) in Sabarimala to continue, she added.

On Union Minister and party leader Pon Radhakrishnan's critical view of the "MeToo" movement, the state BJP chief said it could be his personal opinion.

Radhakrishnan has last week said the #MeToo movement was started by "people with perverted minds" and wondered if it was fair to level accusations over incidents that happened years ago.