In a boost to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in Tamil Nadu, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) led by TTV Dhinakaran, a breakaway faction of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), and regional party Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) joined the saffron party for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, formalising what has been speculated for long.

PREMIUM

On March 1, he announced his decision to offer “unconditional support” to the BJP to ensure that Tamil Nadu also does its bit in electing Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister for a third consecutive term. This also paved the way for another expelled AIADMK leader and former chief minister O Panneerselvam (OPS) to join the BJP alliance who was seen along with Modi on stage in Salem during his public address on Tuesday. OPS has repeatedly offered his support to the BJP-led NDA in his battle against AIADMK’s general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) who had expelled the trio of him, Dhinakaran and Sasikala.

The expelled trio belong to the Thevar community, a subset of the Mukulathors who dominate the southern and a few central districts of Tamil Nadu. They have traditionally been a vote bank of the AIADMK but have been upset with EPS —hailing from the Gounder community — for having expelled the Thevar leaders.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, AMMK had a vote share of 5%. AMMK candidates polled more than 100,000 votes in at least five Lok Sabha segments. However, their vote share plunged by half in the 2021 assembly elections when the DMK swept to power defeating the AIADMK-BJP combine.

Even when OPS and EPS were leading the AIADMK together, the BJP had wanted Dhinakaran and Sasikala to be brought within their fold to bring in a chunk of the Thevar vote bank, but EPS staunchly opposed it.

“The BJP has understood that we have the support of cadres. We have been in talks with them for the past six months in a democratic manner,” Dhinakaran had said. “We have not made any specific demand for the number of seats.”

However, Dhinakaran had in the past criticised the BJP. “I only said that if the BJP continues to bring in schemes that go against the people of Tamil Nadu, I can never ally with them,” he said responding to reporters. “Whether it is the Sterlite plant [in Thoothukudi] or the methane and hydrocarbon projects that Tamil Nadu’s farmers are opposed to, the BJP does not force such schemes anymore. Prime Minister Modi had said several times that he would bring in good schemes in Tamil Nadu, so without any pricking of our conscience, we have decided to ally with the BJP… The BJP will definitely form the government again in India. Everybody knows that Narendra Modi will be the Prime Minister again.”

Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai and Union minister of state L Murugan drove to the residence of PMK founder S Ramadoss in Thailapuram, 130 km from Chennai, on Tuesday. PMK had also been in talks with the AIADMK and has oscillated between tying up with either of the Dravidian parties over the years. After signing the agreement with the BJP, the regional party’s president and former Union minister (in UPA-1) Anbumani Ramadoss said the BJP-PMK alliance will “usher in change” in Tamil Nadu, whose people, he claimed, were “fed up” with 60 years of Dravidian rule. PMK has been part of the NDA in Delhi since 2014, Anbumani noted. “We decided to join NDA keeping in mind national interests. We are confident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will steer the NDA to a hattrick win,” the junior Ramadoss said.

Despite its poor show in the electoral fray in the past decade, PMK retains clout in matters of alliance because of their dominating influence in the Vanniyar community — their core vote bank — in Tamil Nadu’s western and northern belt.

Ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections, the AIADMK- BJP stitched together an alliance with PMK along with late actor-politician Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) and Puthiya Tamizhagam (PT). The alliance was humiliated by winning just one seat managed by the AIADMK. PMK’s vote share was 5.4% higher than BJP’s 3.6%. In the 2016 assembly elections, PMK went solo projecting their leader and former union minister Anbumani Ramadoss as their chief minister candidate but it drew a blank with a 5.3% vote share. The Tamil Maanila Congress led by former Union minister GK Vasan, who was part of the NDA in 2019, has also tied up with the BJP.

Before the 2021 assembly elections, the AIADMK led by then chief minister EPS accepted the PMK’s decades-old demand of providing a 20% sub-quota reservation for the Vanniyar community in education and government jobs. The alliance lost to the DMK’s coalition.

The AIADMK has not announced any alliance yet for the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry. Meanwhile, the ruling DMK, which swept the 2019 LS polls by winning 38 seats, has moved fast to finalising its seat-sharing pact and identified constituencies for the INDIA bloc in the state. The DMK will contest 21 seats while its principal ally, the Congress, has been allotted 9 seats in TN and the Puducherry seat. Other allies such as the VCK, CPI (M) and CPM have been allotted two seats each while the IUML, MDMK, and KMDK will contest a seat each. Actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam will campaign for the INDIA bloc and the DMK has assured them of a Rajya Sabha seat.