BJP, AIADMK to fight 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly election together, says Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah holds a press conference with BJP's K Annamalai and AIADMK's Edappadi Palaniswami, in Chennai.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the AIADMK and BJP will jointly contest the 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

"AIADMK and BJP leaders have decided that AIADMK, BJP and all the alliance parties will contest the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu together as NDA..." Shah said while addressing a press conference in Chennai.

The announcement came on a day Nainar Nagendran emerged as the sole contender to replace K Annamalai as the president of BJP's Tamil Nadu unit.

"These elections will be contested under the leadership of PM Modi on a national level and under the leadership of AIADMK leader Edappadi K. Palaniswami on the state level..." said Shah.

Shah also clarified that there were no pre-alliance conditions between the two parties and that the BJP would have no say in the AIADMK's internal matters.   "We will have no interference in the internal matters of the AIADMK... This alliance is going to be beneficial to both NDA and AIADMK...," he said.

#WATCH | Chennai, Tamil Nadu: On the BJP-AIADMK alliance for Tamil Nadu Vidhan Sabha elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah says, "In the upcoming Tamil Nadu elections, the people will vote on DMK's corruption, law and order issues, atrocities on Dalits and women... DMK pic.twitter.com/Wnf3h5THF0
ANI (@ANI) April 11, 2025

Shah said discussions on distribution of seats and ministries will be held after the government is formed.

The home minister also slammed the  MK Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). "They (DMK and opposition parties) are raising the issues of delimitation and NEET to distract the people... We will sit with AIADMK (since their stand on these issues is different from the BJP-led NDA) and discuss with them," he said. "People are seeking answers from DMK on number of scams, they will vote in elections on original issues."

History of BJP-AIADMK ties 

The AIADMK and BJP have a long history of electoral partnerships.. In the 1998 general election, the J Jayalalithaa-led party tied up with the BJP, scoring 30 out of 39 seats in the state. The next year, however, AIADMK withdrew its support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

A patch-up happened in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, but while AIADMK won just one seat, the BJP scored a blank. At the Centre, the election marked an end to the NDA rule and the UPA returned to power.

In the post-Jayalalithaa era, AIADMK tied up with the BJP in the 2021 state polls. The coalition managed to win just 75 seats. This alliance again fell through in 2023 were largely attributed to former BJP state president K Annamalai.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, AIADMK and the BJP contested separately and failed to open their accounts. The DMK again swept all 39 seats.