Two months after people of Tamil Nadu cast their votes, AIADMK and BJP have been sparring in public over their electoral alliance for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections 2021. The war of words started as former minister CV Shanmugam first blamed BJP for AIADMK’s defeat and said that the alliance with the national party created a dent on minority votes. Soon, the BJP members blamed AIADMK for their defeat. In the recently concluded election, AIADMK won 66 seats while the BJP won four seats. The AIADMK-combine won 75 seats and the national party made its mark by sending its representatives to the Assembly after several years.
Speaking at an event in Vannur, former minister CV Shanmugam said, “Since we kept an alliance with BJP, we completely lost the minority votes. We would have come to power once again, since the people wanted us to continue, but the alliance calculation was wrong. The minority calculation and some other reasons also contributed to our loss.”
Soon after the statement started doing the rounds on social media, BJP leaders hit back, claiming that the AIADMK was the reason for their loss. BJP state general secretary KT Raghavan said, “Former minister CV Shanmugam has said that the reason for loss is BJP but we should see if this is the view of AIADMK. The coordinator and co-coordinator of AIADMK have not said anything on this.”
“Even in the BJP, there is an opinion that some of the decisions in the AIADMK regime had led to the defeat of the alliance. Even the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not convert into votes because of AIADMK’s policy decisions in Tamil Nadu. In 2019, BJP won 303 constituencies. We won with huge numbers in UP, where there are Muslims and Christian majority constituencies. Goa also voted for BJP. So, it is not right to blame BJP for the defeat of the AIADMK,” he added.
Sharing a newspaper clipping of CV Shamugham’s statement, BJP member Khushbu Sundar said, “Actually, it's the other way around.” CV Shamugham lost to DMK’s Lakshmanan R in the recent polls, who won a vote share of close to 50%. However, Shanmugam was not too far behind, winning 42.66% of the total votes.
However, as the former minister’s comments triggered a row, AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam said, "AIADMK has full faith in Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister of India 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."