New Delhi: NCP president Sharad Pawar said DMK chief MK Stalin will be consulted for any decision on bringing AIADMK under the INDIA alliance.
Ending its four-year-old ties with the BJP, the AIADMK on Monday announced walking out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and said it would lead a separate front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“The DMK is an associate of INDIA alliance partners. So no decision related to this will be taken without consulting DMK,” Pawar told reporters when asked whether efforts will be made to bring AIADMK under the INDIA bloc.
The INDIA alliance is a coalition of 28 Opposition parties aiming to take on the BJP-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The AIADMK and the BJP had fought the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the 2021 Assembly polls together in Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK took the decision to walk out of the NDA at a high-level meeting chaired by AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) in Chennai after ties with the BJP reached a breaking point following BJP state head K Annamalai’s comments on former chief ministers CN Annadurai and J Jayalalithaa. Without naming Annamalai, the party blamed the BJP’s “state leadership” for the break-up.
The AIADMK’s decision to break away from the BJP and the NDA has sent confusing signals to allies that only recently cemented ties with the national leadership by attending a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi last month. Highly placed sources said the BJP has decided to hold a meeting of its state core committee and hold dialogues with allies to discuss the ‘unfortunate’ exit of the AIADMK.
Meanwhile, the O Panneerselvam camp has been watching the developments quietly and closely. “We may have to wait till the BJP high command takes a decision. What if they come back together?” asked an associate of former AIADMK coordinator Panneerselvam. OPS has maintained that he was still in the NDA until the BJP snapped its ties with him following pressure from EPS camp.
