ADMK-BJP alliance likely to be finalised within a week

CHENNAI: All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is all set to strike an alliance with the BJP for the Lok Sabha elections, multiple sources in the two parties have confirmed.

The party’s high-level committees, constituted to discuss alliances, seat-sharing, campaigns and manifesto, is scheduled to meet from Monday, and the tie-up is likely to be finalised in a week. A formal announcement is expected to be made after February 10, sources said. The AIADMK is expected to contest not less than 24 seats, apportioning the rest for its allies that will include, besides the BJP, Ramadoss’s PMK, Vijayakant’s DMDK, G K Vasan’s Tamil Maanila Congress, K Krishnaswamh’s Puthiya Tamizhagam and educationist T R Pachamuthu’s IJK, besides a couple of smaller outfits.

Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s confidantes and ministers S P Velumani and P Thangamani are said to be in touch with BJP chief Amit Shah through his Tamil-speaking emissary and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“Preliminary talks began a few months ago,” said a BJP leader. “The AIADMK kept pressuring for the alliance.” Both the parties realise that their political fates are intertwined, said the leader. A few in the AIADMK say the Modi government’s interim budget on February 1, providing sops for farmers and the unorganized sector, could win the AIADMK-led alliance some brownie points.