CHENNAI: Reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s assertion that the saffron party will join the government if the AIADMK-BJP alliance wins in 2026, DMK organisational secretary R S Bharathi said, “That is the BJP’s agenda. Palaniswami, despite already knowing this, is misleading his own party cadre out of fear that they themselves will not accept it.”
Countering Shah’s claims, in an interview to TNIE, that the NDA would win by a landslide in TN in 2026, Bharathi said, “They definitely cannot win. Since 1967, TN has been ruled only by Dravidian parties. The Tamil people will never accept a coalition government. EPS is falsely claiming that the AIADMK is leading the coalition. In reality, it is the BJP that is leading it.”
To support his point, Bharathi recalled the DMK-Congress alliance in 1980, which ended in a debacle.
Meanwhile, Dravidar Kazhagam president K Veeramani questioned the AIADMK leadership in response to Shah’s interview. Veeramani asked, “More than just saying it will be a coalition government, Shah goes one step further and says the election will go ‘their’ way. What will the AIADMK, which is mortgaged, say about it?”
CPM state secretary P Shanmugam said, “Shah’s interview is proof that the AIADMK-BJP alliance has been in constant confusion. On the one hand, Shah says it will be a coalition government; on the other, EPS claims the AIADMK will form a majority government. EPS must clarify this confusion. We can’t even be sure how an AIADMK-led government alone would function. In this situation, a coalition government with the BJP will surely cause great harm to Tamil Nadu.”