Chennai: Five days after the formal announcement of AIADMK joining the NDA alliance, party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) said there would not be any coalition government in Tamil Nadu after the 2026 assembly polls, and that the alliance is only for the election.
EPS’s words contradict those of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who last Friday said at a press conference that the BJP and AIADMK would together form the government and would fight the 2026 polls under the leadership of EPS, who was seated next to Shah at the time.
Asked by reporters about Shah’s remarks, EPS, while leaving the assembly Wednesday afternoon claimed that the home minister didn’t say any such thing. “You are misinterpreting and trying to play with the words. Please stop that.”
The AIADMK leader further said: “He (Amit Shah) had clearly stated that the alliance will be headed by me at the state level and by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the national level. Don’t you understand that?”
At last Friday’s press conference, when asked what the power-sharing equation in the government post the 2026 polls would be if they win, Shah said that it would be decided then.
New state BJP president Nainar Nagendran had told ThePrint that alliance talks were being held among the national leaders and the matter of power-sharing would be decided by them.
“We are in alliance with AIADMK and we will work hard to remove the DMK from power,” he said.
Political analyst Sunil Kumar VM told ThePrint that Shah’s statement from last Friday about NDA forming the government might have become a point of concern among sections of the AIADMK.
“Since 1967, both DMK and AIADMK have roped in several parties in their alliance. But they never formed a coalition government. Even when DMK did not have enough MLAs to form a government, they got the support of their alliance partners and formed a minority government. So coalition government is not something that people of Tamil Nadu are used to and they have high doubts over the union of the parties in power,” he said.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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