AMMK to fight 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly polls with AIADMK
TTV Dhinakaran of AMMK vows to unite with AIADMK for 2026 elections to defeat DMK, despite past conflicts, as they join the NDA alliance.
The Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) will forget its past troubles with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and campaign for them too in the 2026 assembly elections as they are now part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), said TTV Dhinakaran.
“Like how all political parties in the country spoke in a single voice in support of India’s armed forces against Pakistan, in the democratic war of election, all political parties would join hands burying the differences between them with the single objective of defeating the (ruling) DMK,” Dhinakaran told reporters. He likened how the DMK and Congress fought against each other in 1967 and are now allies with AMMK’s fight with the AIADMK. “I want our alliance to be strengthened.” He criticised the ruling state government over law and order.
Dhinakaran, who founded the AMMK in 2018 as a breakaway faction of the AIADMK following his expulsion by party general secretary and leader of opposition Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) in 2017, made these remarks after his meeting with AMMK leaders on Sunday night in Tamil Nadu’s Sattur in Virudhunagar district.
His remarks come after EPS withdrew a case he had filed against Dhinakaran on April 16. It came a week after the AIADMK restored its alliance with the BJP and after Union home minister Amit Shah said that he will not interfere in the internal affairs of the AIADMK.
Dhinakaran joined hands with the BJP ahead of last year’s parliamentary elections. EPS has so far remained steadfast against the BJP’s idea of a “united AIADMK” comprising the three expelled leaders — Dhinakaran, his aunt VK Sasikala and O Panneerselvam (OPS-who is also in the NDA’s fold now).
Before Sasikala was imprisoned in Bengaluru for four years in the disproportionate assets case in February 2017 as AIADMK’s interim general secretary, she appointed Dhinakaran as the party’s deputy general secretary and left the reigns of the party and the government to EPS. OPS at the time rebelled against Sasikala. In a turnaround, EPS and OPS joined hands and in August 2017, they sacked Dhinakaran and Sasikala from the party. In July 2022, Palaniswami expelled Panneerselvam from the party.
Both Dhinakaran and Panneerselvam (who was an independent candidate with NDA’s backing) lost in the 2024 parliamentary elections which was swept by the ruling DMK winning all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu. The BJP, Dhinakaran and Panneerselvam have been calling for a “united AIADMK” to defeat the DMK which has won every election since 2019.
