Chennai: Would the AIADMK-BJP alliance, if it had stayed intact, given a run for the DMK’s money in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu?
A close look at the vote share of the AIADMK and BJP combines suggest that the alliance could have won at least a dozen seats by preventing a cake walk for the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) which won all 39 seats in the state in the high-stakes election.
While the AIADMK polled 20.46 per cent and its ally DMDK (2.5 per cent), the BJP alliance’s combined vote share is 18.28 per cent with the saffron party alone accounting for 11.24 per cent and the PMK 4.2 per cent.
The vote share of the two alliances put together would have helped the AIADMK-BJP not just put up a spirited fight against the arithmetically strong DMK combine, but to have also made a dent in its numbers.
Though the SPA won all 39 seats against 38 in 2019, the alliance’s vote share this time came down to 46.97 per cent when compared to 53.15 per cent in the previous election. The DMK was down from 33.52 per cent in 2019 to 26.93 per cent this election, while Congress garnered 10.67 per cent of votes in 2024 as against 12.61 per cent in 2019.
However, the vote percentage of CPI (M) increased to 2.52 per cent in 2024 from 2.37 per cent in 2019, while CPI went down from 2.40 per cent in 2019 to 2.15 per cent in 2024. The VCK increased its vote share to 2.25 per cent in 2024 from 1.16 per cent in 2019, while IUML too registered a slight increase from 1.16 per cent in 2019 to 1.17 per cent in 2024.
The victory margins of SPA candidates also came down this time when compared to 2019 with six seats being won under a margin of one lakh.
The biggest gainers in terms of vote percentage are the BJP and Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK), a Tamil nationalist outfit, who got 11.24 per cent and 8.10 per cent respectively. “If the current voting percentage is any indication, the AIADMK-BJP alliance would have won at least a dozen seats,” senior journalist Maalan Narayanan told DH.
A case in point is Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency where state BJP chief K Annamalai polled over 4.5 lakh votes, and the AIADMK (2.36 lakh), while the DMK’s winning margin is 1.18 lakh. A victory for the alliance was also possible in Dharmapuri and Virudhunagar where the ruling alliance won by a slim margin.
Annamalai himself admitted on Wednesday that the AIADMK-BJP alliance would have won about 30 seats if they were together but made it clear that his party garnering 11 per cent of votes is a “major development.”
“We wanted to send BJP MPs to Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu and that didn’t happen. But increasing our vote percentage to 11 per cent is a victory. And, we have polled a record number of votes in Coimbatore and the AIADMK just managed to save the deposit amount in the constituency. We see all these as a positive development,” Annamalai added.
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