Didn’t discuss Goyal’s remark, says AIADMK, repeats stance to not join with BJP

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) on Tuesday chaired a meeting with 75 district secretaries of the party in Chennai to discuss preparations for the upcoming parliamentary elections even as the party reiterated its stance of not joining forces with the BJP .

EPS instructed his district secretaries to strengthen their booth committees and social media weeks in preparation for the Lok Sabha elections, said people familiar with the matter.

The meeting comes a day after senior BJP leader and Union minister for commerce Piyush Goyal said in Chennai that the “air is pregnant with possibilities” with respect to alliances.

“Today, we did not discuss his comment. Such matters are discussed only with front line leaders. But, our stand is clear. There is no rapprochement with the BJP,” a senior AIADMK leader said on the condition of anonymity. “We have already made it clear that we will face the elections without a Prime Ministerial face. We are not backtracking from that stand.”

The AIADMK broke the four-year-old alliance last September solely blaming the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit. Both the AIADMK and the BJP’s leaders in Delhi have exercised restraint in criticising each other leading to the speculation that there could be rapprochement between the former partners either ahead of the polls or in a post-poll scenario. However, the BJP has firmly backed its Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai against whom much of AIADMK’s ire lies.Meanwhile, AIADMK’s organising secretary D Jayakumar said that their leadership will take a call on whether they will participate in the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22.

During Tuesday’s meeting, the leaders discussed several matters ranging from missing names of AIADMK supporters in voters list to celebrating party founder M G Ramachandran’s (MGR) birth anniversary on January 17. “We will highlight how under the AIADMK government, Tamil Nadu was peaceful with no law and order issues and under the present DMK government crimes are increasing, electricity and water tariffs have been hiked. The DMK has not kept its election promises,” Jayakumar told reporters.

“Now, Tamil Nadu has become a state of protests,” he added, referring to the transport strike on Tuesday. The state government however said that 95% of public transport was operating in the state.