The BJP has demanded this many seats from AIADMK for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

The BJP has begun preparations for the Tamil Nadu assembly elections. A coalition has been formed between the BJP and the AIADMK for these elections. Recently, AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi Palaniswami met with Amit Shah in New Delhi. Following this meeting, on Friday, Tamil Nadu BJP President K. Annamalai met with Palaniswami to discuss the upcoming assembly elections. According to sources, this meeting continued the seat-sharing discussions that had taken place in Delhi.

According to sources, in a meeting held in Chennai on December 23rd between Palaniswami and election in-charge and Union Minister Piyush Goyal, the BJP indicated its intention to contest more than 50 seats. During the meeting with Amit Shah in Delhi, the BJP also maintained its demand for more than 50 seats. However, the AIADMK has not yet agreed to this, and has instead conveyed that it wants to contest at least 170 seats. This means that the AIADMK is only willing to allocate 64 seats to the BJP and all other alliance partners combined. Tamil Nadu has a total of 234 assembly seats.

Furthermore, Palaniswami does not seem to agree with the BJP's second condition either. To strengthen the alliance, the BJP wants former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, who has rebelled against the AIADMK, and the AMMK party, led by TTV Dhinakaran, to be included in the alliance. AIADMK sources said that in today's meeting, the state BJP president was informed by the AIADMK that there is no question of including O. Panneerselvam, and a decision on TTV Dhinakaran will be made later.

The meeting also included a detailed discussion on where to schedule the Prime Minister's campaign events during the elections so that the alliance could benefit from his image. It's worth noting that in the 2021 elections, the AIADMK had allocated 25 seats to the BJP, of which the BJP won only 4. This time, the demand for more than double the number of seats is raising questions about the very survival of the alliance. TNI