Politics is the ideal ground for solemnising marriages of convenience. Such ties are forged despite an evident incompatibility between the partners because both of them have a need for the other for survival. Though they put on a pretence and keep going, there comes a snapping point in their tortuous journey, particularly if the goals of both partners clash with each other as it has now happened to the BJP and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.
The parties that are poles apart in terms of ideological proclamations, were forced into an arranged nuptial. Now, suddenly AIADMK interim general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami and the BJP State president K. Annamalai have discovered the mismatch because both of them want, and hope, to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 2026. Palaniswami believes that the electoral setbacks of his party have been brought about by its alliance with the BJP while Annamalai thinks, or rather wants to think, that the BJP has grown phenomenally under his leadership in the State that they can brace the elections alone.
Yet despite the lack of a common ideological mooring and each seeing the other as a thorn in the flesh, they continue staying together just like couples of arranged marriage do even after finding that their marriage had irrevocably broken down. So like any estranged couple living under the shadow of elders, the two leaders are at a loss to express their displeasure over the other. For those elders, who made it all possible in the aftermath of the demise of J. Jayalalithaa by browbeating the AIADMK, it is the continuation of the marriage that is important.
So that has left the couple just fighting silly. If one takes in a few defectors from the ally, which is a clear violation of coalition ethics, the other one only retaliates by poaching 50 others from the ally’s camp. Or, they just want to show their one-upmanship rather than fight a political war unitedly to capture Fort St George. But we know divorce in India is not a joke, particularly when the elders take the call.
