Why AIADMK's Palaniswami faces do-or-die situation ahead of 2026 Tamil Nadu polls

AIADMK leader Edappadi Palaniswami

AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami is in a dilemma. He needs as many allies as he can get to unseat the DMK from power in next year's Assembly election. And, he needs to project himself as a strong leader who will not bow down to allies or rivals à la MGR and Jayalalithaa, whose political legacy he claims to have inherited.

To win allies, he must be accommodative, and concede a large number of seats to the other parties in any electoral accord. But he needs to keep a major share of the seats with his party to be able to win a majority of his own and avoid the possibility of a coalition government, which does not sit well with voters.

It is a do-or-die situation for Palaniswami as he continues on a campaign tour of Tamil Nadu that began from Coimbatore. With a show of camaraderie with its ally, the BJP, Palaniswami has no choice but to call for a united opposition to fight the DMK. To consolidate the opposition, he is open to take in more parties into his alliance fold.

He is clearly unhappy with the BJP for claiming that an NDA/power sharing government would be in place in the event of the opposition coming to power in Tamil Nadu. He has emphasised that he/AIADMK is the leader of the opposition front and he is the Chief Ministerial candidate, as Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself announced. But he rejected the idea of sharing power.

Two days before his campaign began and while launching the AIADMK election campaign logo, Palaniswami made it clear: “Those who want to dislodge the DMK should come together. But the government would be ours.”

If AIADMK, which faced three electoral defeats since 2019, does not return to power in the coming Assembly election, it would be difficult to revive the party back to its earlier glory and Palaniswami's leadership would be at stake. A consolidated alliance, with a national party as its member, is the only way out. As he launched his campaign on Monday, he was seated flanked by the Tamil Nadu BJP chief Nainar Nagendran and Union Minister of State L Murugan. Both were also seen with Palaniswami atop the specially designed campaign bus, as he began his yatra. The antagonistic atmosphere that pervaded during K Annamalai’s tenure as the state BJP chief has given way to bonhomie. BJP functionaries were seen greeting Palaniswami at the hotel before the launch of the campaign.

Yet, Palaniswami is well aware of the communal tag attached to the BJP and it is an important plank on which the DMK is campaigning against the AIADMK-BJP alliance. Defending the alliance, Palaniswami says: “If the BJP allies with you (DMK), it is a good party. If we (AIADMK) form an alliance with the BJP, it becomes a communal party. You can’t raise a finger at my four-and-a-half-year government, and that’s the reason you hide behind this communal BJP angle. You have nothing to say against us except claiming the BJP is a communal party.”

He mentions that by the time elections are held next year more parties would join the alliance under AIADMK’s leadership. He certainly has the Tamilaga Vettri Karagham (TVK) of actor Vijay in mind. Recently Vijay iterated that his party would neither align with the ruling DMK nor with the ‘communal’ BJP. One part of Palaniswami’s strategy in declaring that there would not be power sharing in the government is to entice the TVK to join the AIADMK alliance.

The BJP is not as keen as the AIADMK is on wooing TVK, which it sees as cutting into the Christian vote base of the DMK and also the urban youth and Dalits who are seen as backing the DMK alliance.

The other major party that is not in either of the two fronts is the Naam Tamizhar Katchi which is seeking votes on the Tamil nationalism platform. In the BJP's calculation, NTK will affect the prospects of the DMK if it contests alone, and therefore it is better not to ally with it. Ideologically too, the BJP is uncomfortable with both TVK and NTK.

Palaniswami has said that he would personally meet people as he would go around the state covering all the constituencies. He began his campaign from the western region of Tamil Nadu, an AIADMK bastion and where the BJP has a better following than the rest of the state. He has expressed satisfaction at the crowd that greeted him. But whether this mass attendance during his meetings would convert to votes, only time would tell. Can he survive the challenge he has taken on? The weight of the party rests on his shoulders.