AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, on Wednesday, October 4, 2023 said his party had not demanded the removal of BJP state president K. Annamalai.
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The former Chief Minister was speaking to mediapersons after inaugurating completed projects and laying the foundation stone for new projects in his Edappadi Assembly constituency in Salem district.
Mr. Palaniswami said that the AIADMK had not demanded the removal of Mr. Annamalai during its meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah last month. “Likewise, BJP leaders J.P. Nadda, Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not force us to share seats [for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections],” he said.
Certain events that took place in Tamil Nadu have hurt the sentiments of AIADMK workers, he said. If a party won an election, its cadres were the main factor behind the win. The sentiments of cadres were discussed at the meeting held at the party headquarters on September 25, and it was then decided that the party would exit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and snap ties with the BJP, he said.
“We are firm in this decision. This decision has been taken unanimously, and I have already clarified this during the booth committee members meeting recently,” Mr. Palaniswami said.
Responding to a question on alliances, he said, “Wait and see. We will give details of the parties coming to our alliance.” At present, it was not possible to tell if the anti-DMK votes would split, if the AIADMK and BJP contested the elections separately. It was only after the election results that the public mindset would be known, he said.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, the AIADMK got more votes than DMK in seven Parliament seats (in assembly constituencies that cover a Parliamentary constituency). “We lost in three Parliament seats by a small margin and in 10 Parliament seats, we got 50,000 votes less than the DMK alliance,” he said adding that the situation has changed now.
In the two-and-a-half years of the DMK regime, the people of the State had suffered due to hikes in property taxes, electricity tariff etc. The DMK had made many promises during the election, but had fulfilled only 10% of them, Mr. Palaniswami alleged.
Responding to a question on AIADMK MLAs meeting Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Coimbatore on Tuesday, October 3, he said it was the duty of people’s representatives to address issues in their constituency. The AIADMK MLAs met the Union Finance Minister to bring to her knowledge the issues coconut farmers were facing, he clarified.
Responding to claims that there was a chance of the freezing the party’s ‘two-leaves’ symbol, he said, “We have got verdicts from the Supreme Court and High Court in favour of us, and the Election Commission gave us the symbol based on the court rulings.”
