Will ally with party that protects Tamil Nadu interest: CM Edappadi K Palaniswami

Chennai: Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Friday said the AIADMK would support, in the coming Lok Sabha elections, only a party whose rule at the Centre protests the interests of Tamil Nadu.

“As far as we are concerned, our stand is that whoever does good for the people of Tamil Nadu, that party should come to power at the Centre,” Palaniswami said at a party event here, sharing dais with Deputy CM O Panneerselvam. “We will not accept anyone who betrays the people of Tamil Nadu. This is our stand,” the CM stressed.

He was obviously referring to the remarks made by PM Modi at his video interaction with BJP booth-level workers on Thursday that the BJP cherished its “old friends” just the way its famous statesman Vajpayee had done in forging his NDA (1999). The PM was responding to a BJP member's question whether the party would join hands with the AIADMK, the DMK or Rajinikanth for the coming Lok Sabha polls. And in doing so, Modi had left wide open the question if by “old friends” he meant the DMK or the AIADMK as the BJP's NDA had included both the Dravidian parties at one time or another, though not together.

It may be recalled that the AIADMK under Jayalalithaa had joined hands with the BJP to face the 2004 LS elections but the alliance could not win even a single seat while the DMK-Congress team swept the polls. A decade later, the AIADMK Amma chose to go it alone and scored a stupendous sweep winning 37 of the 39 seats in the 2014 Parliament poll. In that poll, the BJP joined hands with five smaller parties such as the DMDK, PMK and MDMK and won one seat for Pon Radhakrishnan while PMK's Dr Anbumani Ramadoss bagged Dharmapuri.