Chennai: The ongoing row between the AIADMK and the BJP, erstwhile allies for about 7 years till September 2023, has taken an acrimonious turn after BJP State president K Annamalai took on AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami directly by calling him a ‘frog in the well’ and an ‘ignoramus,’ among other things.
The unsavory remarks made at a meeting in Chennai on Sunday, earned the ire of AIADMK honchos that two of the second rung leaders came out openly on Monday to get back at Annamalai and also question him on a variety of issues, while lower level functionaries put out wall posters against the BJP leader in Sivaganga and burned him in effigy in Thanjavur.
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly R B Udhayakumar called Annamalai an ‘octopus’ and a ‘leech’ and advised him to see a psychiatrist as he had gone mad, while AIADMK deputy general secretary, K P Munuswamy, said that the BJP leader was feeling insecure after losing all the seats the party contested in the Lok Sabha elections.
In a statement, Udhayakumar said Annamalai was attacking Palaniswami for calling out BJP’s ‘illicit relationship’ with the DMK and threw a slew of challenges at the BJP State President like daring him to name the beneficiaries who funded his extraordinarily high monthly expenses on house rent, salaries to assistants, vehicle, fuel and so on.
He accused Annamalai of now repeating the same charges that the DMK had been levelling against the AIADMK for long and recalled how he had predicted the AIADMK going under the leadership of somebody else after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Though the AIADMK had been going soft on its opposition to the BJP in the State soon after it broke ties with a view to contesting the Lok Sabha elections on its own, slowly the fight turned intense with leaders of both parties turning more aggressive.
When both party leaders were pulling punches initially, the DMK and other parties even predicted that they might once again patch up and get together after the elections, though there was no need of it as all the 40 seats, including the lone constituency in Puducherry Union Territory, were swept by the rival DMK-led alliance.
The AIADMK turned aggressive in their onslaughts against the BJP when the ruling DMK came under attack for attending the at home tea party at the Raj Bhavan after announcing a boycott of it and then for inviting Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for unveiling the Rs 100 coin brought out in memory of M Karunanidhi to mark his centenary.
The coin issue came handy for the AIADMK, particularly its general secretary, to accuse the DMK and BJP of a secret pact, to which Annamalai was forced to come out with replies denying any long term relationship between the two parties. He was first forced to reply to the charge made out against his paying homage at the Karunanidhi memorial.
Though Annamalai wriggled out of that controversy saying that Karunanidhi was a five time Chief Minister of the State and there was nothing wrong in being respectful to him, the AIADMK persisted with its allegation of a secret pact between the ruling parties in the State and the Centre, which forced him to spew venom at the BJP meeting on Sunday. Now the AIADMK is hitting back.
