Chennai: Tamilisai Soundararajan — the former Telangana governor and ex-Tamil Nadu unit BJP chief — who was named the party nominee from Chennai South Parliamentary constituency just ahead of the elections, backed the statement of former Cabinet minister S.P. Velumani of AIADMK who said that an alliance (of BJP & AIADMK) could have won at least 35 of 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
At a press conference here on Thursday, Soundararajan said “the statement of S.P. Velumani was correct, and an alliance of AIADMK and BJP would have led to 35 seats”.
Soundararajan, however, said that she was not in a position to say if an alliance for the Assembly polls (in 2026) was possible.
The former Telangana Governor also said she cannot comment about BJP state president K. Annamalai’s statement against the AIADMK.
Soundararajan also said that she or no state leader could comment on whether there would be any further alliance with AIADMK as it was “a prerogative of the party’s central leadership”.
Senior AIADMK leader and former minister, S.P. Velumani in a statement on Thursday said that it was only because of Annamalai that the alliance between AIADMK and BJP split up in Tamil Nadu.
He also said that Annamalai had spoken against iconic Dravidian leaders like C.N. Annadurai and J. Jayalalithaa and that this had led to the split between AIADMK and BJP.
Velumani had also said that the AIADMK and BJP had a smooth relationship when the BJP was led by Tamilisai Soundararajan and L. Murugan, and Annamalai being a “newcomer in politics” destroyed the alliance.
Meanwhile, C. Rajeev, Director of Centre for Policy and Development Studies, a think-tank based out of Chennai, told IANS: “Velumani had rightly said that if the alliance between the BJP and AIADMK had continued, the alliance would have won a good number of seats. Annamalai will have to do a lot of explaining to the national leadership.The support extended by Tamilisai Soundararajan to the statement of Velumani is an indicator that all is not well in the Tamil Nadu unit of BJP.”
–IANS