No big message from AIADMK’s general council meet

The AIADMK’s general council, which met on Tuesday, December 26, 2023 after a gap of one and a half years, did not send out any big message on the party’s alliance strategy for the Lok Sabha election.  

It only reiterated what the party’s general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami and others have been saying for the last three months - no truck with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) anymore. In fact, a month after snapping its ties with the national party and quitting the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in September, Mr. Palaniswami told journalists at the party’s Omalur office in Salem district that his party would not have any alliance with the BJP for the next Assembly elections too - due in 2026.

AIADMK party members during the party’s general council meeting in Chennai on December 26, 2023 (Source: R. Ragu)

Even though the general secretary has been talking of forming a “mega alliance,” the general council did not throw any light on the matter. But, D. Jayakumar, organisation secretary of the party, does not see anything amiss in the way the council held its deliberations. “At the time of the Lok Sabha election, we will tell you all regarding our allies,” he observes.

On the difference in the tones of language used by the party, through its resolutions at the general council meeting, for the BJP-led government at the Centre and the DMK regime in the State, Mr. Jayakumar argues that “even when we say that we urge the Centre to act on a given issue, it is an expression of our disapproval only.”  

P. Venugopal, Tiruvallur’s former Member of Parliament and the party’s medical wing secretary, says that he is able to sense enthusiasm among the party cadre after the decision to break with the BJP. “This was evident yesterday too,” the former MP observes, hoping that the party will be able to get back the support from religious minorities.

Asked whether the minorities had backed the AIADMK in a big way in the past, he replies in the affirmative and recalls that they supported his party in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll. The two-time MP claims that “the anti-incumbency factor against the DMK government is so strong that the AIADMK is going to win hands down.”