Tamil Nadu politics: Ongoing talks with BJP put AIADMK in a fix over Waqf Bill issue
“BJP is a force to reckon with in the Hindi heartland as its hypernationalism is tailored for those states, but not here. The Waqf bill will further damage the image here in TN,” said one AIADMK leader.
Edappadi K Palaniswami with Amit Shah
CHENNAI: Amidst uproar and strong objections from the opposition parties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government tabled the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 in Parliament on Wednesday. While it may benefit the BJP politically, its allies are likely to feel the heat on the electoral front. It could cast a long shadow over the AIADMK, which had nearly revived its alliance with the saffron party for the Assembly polls next year.
The BJP is politically estranged in Tamil Nadu in almost all issues. The ongoing Assembly session illustrated it as the saffron party’s present and former allies, including the AIADMK, joined hands with the ruling DMK on issues such as Hindi Imposition, State autonomy and secularism.
When Chief Minister MK Stalin moved a resolution on March 27, demanding that the BJP-led Union government “fully withdraw” the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, the leaders of AIADMK and all other political parties supported the resolution and spoke in a single voice. On the other hand, the BJP found itself isolated among the 234-member House. BJP legislator Vanathi Srinivasan, along with party MLA Gandhi, staged a walk-out.
BJP finds itself alienated when it comes to issues such as the National Education Policy-influenced three-language push, National Eligiibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), the delimitation exercise, and the withholding of funds for education and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. These politically emotive issues put the BJP and its allies in a disadvantaged position on the electoral front.
BJP’s politics is alien to Tamil Nadu, and it always takes a path of its own, says political critic Tharasu Shyam. “While it may benefit the BJP by keeping its vote bank intact, its allies will get a beating. It could be Nitish Kumar of JD(U) or Chandrababu Naidu of TDP. They would lose minority votes. The AIADMK has already lost its vote base among minorities due to its electoral ties with the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It will lose a section of its core vote bank, particularly those who are pro-Tamil and emphasise the secular fabric,” Tharasu Shyam observed.
He recalled MGR’s famous statement terming DMK and AIADMK as a double-barrel gun. “MGR made a strong statement in the House in 1977 that both AIADMK and DMK are a double-barrel gun in five spheres, including State autonomy, the two-language policy, and secularism,” Shyam recalled. He opined that the present AIADMK under Palaniswami would lose its credibility if it joins BJP’s alliance, which subscribes to hyper-nationalism and focuses on Hindu-Hindi-Hindutva.
Echoing the same, senior AIADMK leaders and several members of the party confided with DT Next that the party leadership “finalised the alliance with BJP” under political compulsion. Though PM Modi is a towering personality and wields enormous influence among voters in northern states, he was unable to replicate it in TN and ended up with zero seats in LS polls in 2024.
“BJP is a force to reckon with in the Hindi heartland as its hypernationalism is tailored for those states, but not here. The Waqf bill will further damage the image here in TN,” said one AIADMK leader.
Another leader attributed its dwindling vote share among minorities to its stand on the BJP's Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019. People here closely watch the party's Parliamentarians' actions when it comes to such crucial policy decisions of the BJP, said the leader and pointed out former minister D Jayakumar's remark that he lost 40,000 of minorities' votes in his Royapuram Constituency and squarely blamed the BJP for his defeat in the 2021 polls.
