Chennai: It came as a huge relief to BJP as Captain’s DMDK sewed up the alliance in the state Saturday with a seat sharing deal. The rapprochement came about just a day after the BJP leadership had expressed concern over Vijayakanth’s unilateral decision to announce his first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha poll. In his speech in Cheyyar, Captain also called upon the electorate to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister.
According to sources in the national party, senior BJP leaders contacted L. K. Sudheesh, party founder’s brother-in-law and DMDK’s youth wing leader and told him to convince his party founder to return to the negotiating table. “We did not say that we would finalise the alliance without the DMDK, but only pursued the issue of alliance. The matter was conveyed to Mr Vijayakanth and he agreed to finalise the alliance,” a BJP senior told this reporter on Saturday.
Contrary to speculation that the actor-politician would demolish the BJP initiative of forging an electoral alliance, Vijayakanth had responded “positively” and his tone was evident in the manner in which he had campaigned Saturday. “He had canvassed votes for our Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and had even admitted that he was willing to accept the list (of Lok Sabha constituencies) that had been discussed and decided upon between the two parties,” another BJP leader said.
As to the five constituencies for which Mr Vijayakanth had announced on Friday, the BJP said those seats were already granted to DMDK and hence that would not cause any difficulties.
