Alliance will be decided only during polls: TN CM Edappadi K Palaniswami

AIADMK will continue to lead the alliance in the 2021 assembly elections too like it did during the last year’s Lok Sabha polls, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said on Friday. His statement is seen as a direct response to remarks by BJP vice-president V P Duraisamy who had said that the saffron party would lead the alliance for the 2021 polls.

“It is the AIADMK that has always led the alliance from the times of M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa. That trend will continue and AIADMK will lead the alliance. This was the arrangement during 2019 Lok Sabha polls too,” Palaniswami told reporters in Thanjavur on Friday evening.

In the morning, he had said there was still time to talk about alliances as elections are eight months away.

Speaking to reporters after reviewing measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic in the district, the Chief Minister said the parties that constitute the alliance have not been firmed up yet, be it in the AIADMK or the DMK camp.

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"Hence, only during the run-up to the elections, alliances will be decided," he said. BJP state vice-president V P Duraisamy, who recently joined the party from the DMK, on August 12 had claimed the saffron party's growth has altered the political landscape in the state.

The assembly elections due next year would, hence, be a fight between the BJP and DMK, under a "BJP-led alliance," he had said.

According to him, being a national party, the BJP had the right to lead the alliance in assembly polls.

Making light of Duraisamy's claim, the AIADMK had said such views, if aired by the BJP's state unit president L Murugan, would have weight.

The BJP had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu as part of the AIADMK-led alliance which among others included the PMK and the DMDK.

(With PTI inputs)