Though Amit Shah wants the DMDK in the NDA, no one is sure which way the party’s chief Premalatha Vijaykanth would swing when the real negotiations start. For, the DMK is also keen on roping in the DMDK for the elections.
Chennai: The BJP would like to contest in at least 25 seats in Tamil Nadu, five more than in 2021, though the party is said to have placed a demand for allocation of close to double that number during the seat-sharing parleys that kick started on Friday with BJP State president Nainar Nagenthran calling on AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami at the latter’s residence in Chennai.
Nagentheran was accompanied by his senior party colleagues in the discussions in which the issue of admitting TMMK founder T T V Dinakaran and former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam into the NDA fold is said to have figured.
Since Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has been coordinating the alliance in the State, is keen on not letting both Dinakaran and Panneerselvam go out of the alliance, an arrangement is likely to be worked out to retain them in the NDA even if Palaniswami would not let them into the AIADMK.
The BJP leaders want the AIADMK to finalise the agreement on the number of seats and other nitty gritties related to the coalition before Union Minister Piyush Goel’s next visit to Tamil Nadu as they want the entire NDA line up in the State to be present on stage when Prime Minister Narendra Modi would launch his campaign for the 2026 Assembly elections in the State.
Apart from the high demand for seats placed by the BJP, the identification of seats, too, had become a thorn in the flesh of the negotiations that had begun at the behest of Amit Shah, who had called Palaniswami to New Delhi to have a tete-e-tete with him a couple of days earlier.
The State BJP had identified some seats, in which the party had polled good number of votes in the past, but for the AIADMK all of them could not be agreeable to be given away. So the negotiations are likely to continue not only on the numbers but also on the allocation of seats.
The other issue that could defy an immediate agreement could be on the admission of other allies and the allocation of seats to them. Apart from the Anbumani Ramadoss faction of the PMK, it is not clear as to which party was keen on joining the alliance.
Though Amit Shah wants the DMDK in the NDA, no one is sure which way the party’s chief Premalatha Vijaykanth would swing when the real negotiations start. For, the DMK is also keen on roping in the DMDK for the elections.
Otherwise, not many parties in Tamil Nadu might evince interest in joining the NDA, leaving the fight over seats to the BJP and AIADMK.
