Can Amit Shah clinch a power-sharing pact with defiant AIADMK?

Union Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Chennai on November 21 comes at a crucial time when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ally All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is crossing swords with the national party after the state BJP leader L Murugan announced a ‘Vetrivel Yaatra’. The AIADMK government has refused to allow the yatra and four times detained BJP leaders when they attempted to commence the yatra.

After the demise of AIADMK leader and former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, there were allegations from opposition leaders including Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader MK Stalin that the BJP government at the Centre is safeguarding the Edappadi K Palaniswami-led state government.

During the campaign for the 2019 general elections, the opposition parties blamed the AIADMK and its government of dancing to the tunes of the BJP, and failing to oppose the Centre’s ‘anti-Tamil’ moves of Hindi imposition, NEET and the Cauvery dispute. That election the AIADMK suffered embarrassing loses and began to distance itself from the BJP during the campaign for the assembly bypolls to Nanguneri and Vikravandi. The AIADMK convincingly won the bypolls.

On October 7, Palaniswami was declared as the AIADMK’s chief ministerial candidate for the 2021 assembly elections, and since then he has started opposing some of the Centre’s policies, including the New Education Policy. When the Vetrivel Yaatra’s propaganda song was released depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as AIADMK founder and former Chief Minister MGR, the AIADMK opposed it saying that BJP should not use MGR to popularise its flag and symbol.

The Palaniswami government has almost survived its full term without facing any problem from the BJP, and his sudden aggression towards it, with the assembly elections just five months away, has irked the BJP leaders. Tamil Nadu BJP General Secretary KT Raghavan hit out at the AIADMK accusing that it has a tacit understanding with the opposition DMK which is opposing the yatra. BJP state president L Murugan also threw a challenge at the AIADMK government by declaring that the party will take out its yatra even if it was stopped multiple times.

However, AIADMK party organ ‘Namadhu Amma’ in an article on Novermber 16 lashed out at the yatra and said “AIADMK, which is beyond religion and caste, will not allow any yatra along caste and religious lines to create a vote bank for politics.” Describing Tamil Nadu as ‘a rationalist land’ and ‘cradle of Dravidian ideology’, the party mouthpiece said the essence of all religions is propagating peace.

Till now, the BJP state leaders have refused to accept Palaniswami as the CM nominee of the alliance, and are demanding a power-sharing arrangement in Tamil Nadu. Minister D Jayakumar, who is considered the spokesperson for the ruling AIADMK, has declared that his party will not share power with any party, and will form a government on its own.

The BJP which contested alone in the 2006 assembly polls got 2.02 percent votes and 2.22 percent in the 2011 assembly elections. After coming to power at the Centre in 2014, the party polled 2.84 percent per cent votes in the 2016 assembly elections.

TN BJP leaders are elated over Shah’s visit at this crucial juncture and they expect him to bring the AIADMK to the negotiating table, and clinch an alliance for the 2021 polls on the BJP’s terms. They also expect Shah to force a power-sharing arrangement or a minimum of 50 of the 234 assembly seats in the seat-sharing arrangement. “Amit Shah’s visit will instil fear in the hearts of the opposition”, claimed Murugan, when he announced Shah’s visit.

While the DMK remained silent over the BJP leader’s remarks, in a surprising reaction to media’s queries, AIADMK leader and law minister CV Shanmugam said, “The AIADMK has faced numerous challenges and crises in the past and the party will not fear any ‘Komban’ (strong person)”. Jayakumar also quipped that “Amit Shah’s visit is irrelevant to the AIADMK”.

Shah who takes part in a government function on November 21, is also expected to meet Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on the same day. All eyes are on Shah’s meeting with the AIADMK leaders, and whether and how he will succeed in wrenching a favourable deal for the BJP.