Palaniswami launches AIADMK’s 2026 Tamil Nadu election campaign with BJP leaders in tow

Chennai: Flanked by Tamil Nadu BJP chief Nainar Nagendran and Union Minister of State L Murugan, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday kicked off his campaign for the 2026 assembly elections from Coimbatore, justifying the tie-up with the saffron party by saying it was only in the interests of Tamil Nadu.

The presence of BJP leaders at the launch -- the first phase of the campaign will cover 38 assembly constituencies in the western, northern, and central parts of the state -- is significant amid visible strain in the alliance over the composition of the government that will be formed if the National Democratic Alliance wins the 2026 assembly polls.

Nagendran, the newly appointed chief of the TN BJP, and Murugan, who hails from the western region and is now the party’s Dalit face, joined Palaniswami atop his specially designed bus. Prior to this, a group of BJP leaders met Palaniswami at a hotel and wished him luck for the tour --camaraderie that was missing when K. Annamalai was the state BJP chief.

Palaniswami, who launched his campaign from Coimbatore -- a traditional stronghold of the AIADMK -- vowed to send the DMK government led by Chief Minister M. K. Stalin packing. He went hammer and tongs against the DMK for criticizing the AIADMK’s alliance with the BJP, asking Stalin to remember that his father had allied with the saffron party and contested the 1999 Lok Sabha polls and the 2001 assembly polls.

“If the BJP allies with you (DMK), it is a good party. If we (AIADMK) form an alliance with the BJP, it becomes a communal party. You can’t raise a finger at my four-and-a-half-year government, and that’s the reason you hide behind this communal BJP angle. You have nothing to say against us except claiming the BJP is a communal party,” he said.

“I think Stalin must be trembling after seeing this launch. He might suffer from a fever and may have to visit a doctor tomorrow. There is no doubt that the AIADMK-BJP alliance will achieve a Himalayan victory in the next elections. We will form the next government by dislodging this anti-people government,” he said.

Palaniswami also launched an all-round attack against the Stalin government, accusing it of betraying the people by not fulfilling promises made during elections.

Launching the tour from Coimbatore is also significant, since the AIADMK has traditionally been strong in the western region, though it suffered a setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls when BJP’s Annamalai pushed the party to third place.

Palaniswami’s campaign also comes close on the heels of the ruling DMK launching a door-to-door campaign to reach about 2 crore households in the state to talk about the government’s welfare programs and to counter the BJP and its ally, AIADMK.