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War of words between AIADMK and BJP over Tamil Nadu electoral loss
Chennai: Two months after the state elections, AIADMK and BJP have been sparring over former AIADMK minister CV Shunmugam’s statement that the Dravidian party lost the assembly polls due to its alliance with the saffron party
Chennai: Two months after the state elections, AIADMK and BJP have been sparring over former AIADMK minister CV Shunmugam’s statement that the Dravidian party lost the assembly polls due to its alliance with the saffron party.
In the assembly elections, the AIADMK won 66 seats, BJP won four and their combined alliance with other regional parties won a total of 75 seats.
Speaking at an event in Vannur, the video of which began circulating on Wednesday, the former law minister says, “Since we had an alliance with BJP, we entirely lost the minority votes...The most important reason for loss is our alliance with the BJP. Minorities don’t have any issues with our party and governance. But due to ideological differences they have with the BJP, they didn’t vote for us.”
Shunmugam lost to DMK’s R Lakshmanan by a margin of 22,291 votes in Villupuram.
Reacting to the speech, BJP’s general secretary KT Raghavan said that minorities across India are voting for the party. “Even some of our cadre think that we lost in a few places because we allied with the AIADMK and due to certain decisions they took while they were governing in the last four years,” said Raghavan. “But we have to see if CV Shunmugam’s statement is the party’s opinion.” BJP’s Khushbu Sundar shared a Tamil newspaper report of his speech and tweeted, “Actually it’s the other way around.”
The AIADMK said it’s not a formal statement but an off the record comment made during an internal meeting. “It was an internal party meeting. Several party members can share their opinions. That’s off the record,” AIADMK’s former minister and spokesperson D Jayakumar said. “He spoke among the party cadre internally so I cannot give my opinion on his statement.”
Amid the war of words, AIADMK’s coordinator and deputy opposition leader O Panneerselvam tweeted a statement that the AIADMK has full faith in the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Considering the interests of the nation and also the welfare of Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK-BJP alliance will continue and there is no second opinion on this,” he said.
In a joint statement, without mentioning BJP, AIADMK leaders O Panneerselvam and Edappadi Palaniswami reiterated that the alliance formed ahead of the 2021 assembly elections will continue.
