Chennai, May 30
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has severed its alliance with the ruling All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu after both parties scored a duck in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections for 40 seats in the state and adjoining Pondicherry.
The BJP President, Mr Venkaiah Naidu, said here today, “We had formed an alliance for the election. The election is over. You understand better.” He was talking to reporters after attending the BJP state executive committee meeting here.
However, like the state BJP leaders, Mr Naidu did not put the blame for the BJP-AIADMK combine’s election debacle on the regional party and said, “We will not blame the AIADMK for the electoral setback since we had contested the elections collectively.”
He said the mandate throughout the country was not a mere anti-incumbency vote against the National Democratic alliance (NDA) government. He felt that national issues were overtaken by local problems during the elections.
Mr Naidu said had Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa reversed most of her controversial decisions before the elections, the BJP-AIADMK alliance would have performed better.
Though Ms Jayalalithaa, after the election debacle, refused to accept the fact that the rout was because of unpopular decisions during the past three years of regime, within a week she rolled back many of her controversial decisions and announced free power to the farmers.
She removed income restrictions to obtain rations through the public distribution system, withdrew punishments and disciplinary proceedings against the state government employees and teachers who went on strike last year and ordered the withdrawal of cases against political leaders for “instigating” the strikers.
The Chief Minister also withdrew criminal defamation cases against the media and repealed the law banning religious conversions.
Mr Naidu’s statement indicated the mood within the Tamil Nadu BJP unit, which had openly said after the elections that the party had to suffer because of aligning with Ms Jayalalithaa, who had become unpopular during the past three years.
The BJP leadership in the state was also cut up over the fact that at the behest of Ms Jayalalithaa, the state BJP leader and former Union Minister of the state, Mr S. Thirunavukarasar, was not allowed to contest from the Pudukottai parliamentary constituency.
That was a seat, which the BJP could have surely won and by sidelining Mr Thirunavukarasar, the central BJP leadership demoralised its workers in the state.
Once a mentor but later a severe critic of the Chief Minister, Mr Thirunavukarasar, did not even campaign during the elections.
