AIADMK, BJP stitch alliance in Tamil Nadu again for 2026 Assembly polls

Nagendran takes charge of state BJP

Tamil Nadu’s two prominent opposition parties, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and BJP announced an alliance on Friday to take on ruling DMK in the state elections slated for 2026.

 

Both parties had parted ways in 2023, close on the heels of 2024 General Elections. One of the reasons cited in the AIADMK camp was the differences with then state BJP President K Annamalai.

 

Interestingly, on Friday, Nainar Nagendran became the BJP’s Tamil Nadu president.

 

Hours after Nagendran’s appointment, the BJP and AIADMK formally announced an alliance for the upcoming election. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the polls would be fought under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, with AIADMK’s Edappadi K Palaniswami leading the alliance at the state level.

 

 

“We will make a common minimum programme if needed,” Shah added. He said that the BJP will not intervene in any of the AIADMK's internal matters.

 

Shah clarified that the alliance announcement has no link whatsoever with the decision to replace Annamalai, and the alliance plans were taken much in advance.

 

He thanked Annamalai for his “unprecedented contributions” to the party and indicated that he will be used in the party’s national framework.

 

This alliance will be crucial for both players as anti-DMK votes are expected to split with the electoral entry of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), led by actor Vijay (Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar).

 

In the 2021 assembly elections, the DMK stormed back to power led by MK Stalin, winning 133 seats by itself, with the alliance taking a larger share of 159 out of the total 234 seats. On the other hand, the NDA alliance, with AIADMK in it, won only 75 seats, with AIADMK getting 66. Though there is a major difference between both parties in terms of the number of seats, the vote share difference between the DMK (37.7 per cent) and AIADMK (33.29 per cent) was hardly around 4 per cent.

 

“The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will comfortably win in Tamil Nadu,” Shah said.

 

In September 2023, both parties parted ways over the critical remarks of Annamalai on the late Dravidian stalwart CN Annadurai. Annamalai had claimed that Annadurai insulted Hinduism during an event in Madurai in 1956. Annamalai had made comments against the late chief minister J Jayalalithaa too.

 

There were also reports that one reason for separation was that Annamalai and Palaniswami come from the same powerful community called the Gounders, dominant in western Tamil Nadu. Hence, the current appointment of Nagendran is considered an effort to balance caste and regional equations.

 

Nagendran is part of another influential community called the Thevars, and is also from Tirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu, where the BJP is trying to increase its presence. More importantly, he started his political career with the AIADMK and even served as a minister for the party.