AIADMK breaks ties with BJP in Tamil Nadu, pulls out of NDA

  Announcing this at the end of a meeting of the party’s district secretaries, headquarters secretaries, Members of Paliament and Members of Legislative Assembly at Chennai, K.P. Munusamy, the party’s deputy general secretary, told reporters that the State leadership of the BJP had been, for the last one year, “deliberately, in a planned manner and with motive, defaming” icons of the party such as C.N. Annadurai and Jayalalithaa and “criticising” policies of the party. Edappadi K. Palaniswami, the general secretary, presided over the meeting that lasted about an hour. Even though the resolution did not name any leader of the BJP, the allusion to the state president of the BJP, K. Annamalai, was obvious. Munusamy also announced that his party would form a coalition to face the Lok Sabha poll, scheduled for April-May 2024. The development followed the declaration by the party’s organisation secretary, D. Jayakumar on September 18 that the BJP was no longer its ally. However, he hastened to add that the alliance would be decided at the time of the election. Four days later, a delegation of the AIADMK went to New Delhi and interacted with senior leaders of the BJP. Even though the AIADMK’s relationship with Annamalai had not been smooth for more than a year, the latter’s observations on Annadurai a couple of weeks ago had provoked the latest round of spat between the two parties.