The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has renewed its alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) for Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, which are to take place next year. The move comes 19 months after the two parties fell out, while they were at loggerheads over leadership style and comments of BJP state chief K Annamalai.
This renewed alliance in Tamil Nadu is likely to make the political contest sharply bipolar – the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led alliance against the AIADMK-BJP coalition. The two parties had fought together in the 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Both times, they were outdone by the DMK alliance.
From July 2021, after the appointment of AIADMK and BJP to warm relations came to an end with the appointment of K Annamalai as Tamil Nadu president of the BJP. The increasing tensions were brought about by constant controversial statements of his, especially those that seemed to be disrespectful towards former AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa and other Dravidian stalwarts. In 2023, the AIADMK too passed a resolution condemning Annamalai’s remarks and later withdrew from the BJP-led NDA.
But the two parties seem to have come back together in the run-up to the 2026 elections, for political necessity. With the announcement on the cards, the BJP took a series of internal changes ahead of the announcement, in the form of the appointment of a former AIADMK leader at a key position, as part of the strategy of reconciliation and coalition building.
The deal is expected to redraw the electoral equations in Tamil Nadu, with the two big coalitions of the state poised for a high-stakes affair.
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