The PMK leadership will regret, after the Lok Sabha polls, its decision to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said S. Semmalai, senior leader of the AIADMK and Salem’s former MP.
Commenting on the PMK becoming a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Mr Semmalai, who was Health and Education Minister in the Cabinet headed by Jayalalithaa during 2001-04, in a chat with The Hindu on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, claimed that the rank and file of the PMK was not happy about the development.
By overlooking the AIADMK for the BJP, the PMK leadership had not remembered that it was after the alliance with the former in 1998 that the party got recognition as a State party, with a separate symbol. Also, it was due to the support of the AIADMK that Anbumani Ramadoss could become an MP (Rajya Sabha), Mr. Semmalai recalled.
The veteran leader asserted that in Tamil Nadu, only Dravidian political parties could capture power and no other force could make a huge dent here.
As for AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami’s declaration some months ago that he would form a “mega alliance,” Mr Semmalai responded that the term “mega alliance” should not be seen only in the context of political parties. “Ours is with the common man of the State,” he observed, adding that all those opposed to the DMK and disenchanted with the present regime, should favour only the AIADMK during the election and not waste their votes by supporting others.
