BJP spars with ex-minister of AIADMK over poll defeat, minority votes

VILLUPURAM: On a day when several state BJP leaders slammed former AIADMK minister C Ve Shanmugam for his remarks that the saffron party was responsible for the AIADMK’s assembly poll debacle “as minorities voted against the alliance”, AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam and joint coordinator Edappadi K Palaniswami released a statement reiterating that the alliance formed for the assembly poll would continue and the party lost the election by just 3% votes.
The joint statement came a few hours after O Panneerselvam — in a tweet in which he tagged PM Modi, Amit Shah and J P Nadda — said the AIADMK had full faith in the BJP and the PM and there was no second opinion on continuation of the AIADMK-BJP alliance which was in the interest of the nation and for the welfare of Tamil Nadu.
It all began with Shanmugam’s speech at a party meeting in Villupuram on Tuesday where he said people did not want the DMK to form the government nor M K Stalin to become the CM. “The main reason for our defeat was our alliance with the BJP,” he had said. Senior BJP leaders took to Twitter on Wednesday to express their displeasure. “Actually, it’s the other way around,” tweeted actor and BJP leader Khushbu Sundar. “We too think ‘it’s because of you’,” senior BJP leader K T Raghavan tweeted in Tamil.
Raghavan argued that the saffron party had formed the government in many states and at the Centre with the support of the minorities. Raghavan said the BJP had analysed the poll results. “Our party felt that the four-year performance of the AIADMK government may be the reason for the defeat. We wanted to uphold alliance dharma. We never go public to blame alliance partners. The former minister’s comment is unacceptable. We believe their party high command will give a proper explanation on the issue,” said Raghavan.
Shanmugham while addressing partymen said, “The main reason for our defeat was our alliance with the BJP. The minorities could not accept our alliance with the BJP as their principles and ideologies are completely different.” He said he himself lost to a DMK candidate by 14,000-odd votes from Villupuram constituency that has 20,000 minority votes. He pointed out that the difference in vote share between DMK and AIADMK was a meagre 3%, roughly 13 lakh votes. “A swing of five or six lakh votes could have changed the poll outcome,” he said.