As AIADMK breaks away, why BJP needs to look beyond numbers to the bigger whole

The AIADMK’s exit is more than just another ally walking out of the NDA. It makes political sense for the party to do so at this juncture for, like its rival DMK, it too is eyeing 2026 (when state polls are due). And the repositioning it wants to do cannot be left till the last moment.

With Udhayanidhi Stalin’s repeated attacks against Sanatan Dharma (identified with upper castes), the DMK is bringing the focus back to its anti-Brahminical Dravidian roots, grounded in the self-respect movement of E V Ramaswamy or Periyar. This has made it more difficult for the AIADMK to stay on with the BJP. Former CM Edappadi Palanisami (EPS), who has a grip over the AIADMK’s organisation, has been reaching out to the DMK’s smaller allies, like Dalit outfits, offering them more seats than the DMK.

But, while the AIADMK has a reason to walk away, it makes less sense for the BJP to let it go, and that too just before the 2024 national elections. The BJP has endorsed Sanatan Dharma, against what Udhayanidhi has said, and done it aggressively, in the hope of consolidating Hindus behind it. It has also allowed its rising star, and Tamil Nadu chief, K Annamalai, to take on the AIADMK frontally. Nor did the Central leadership go out of its way to woo the AIADMK when things started to sour.

It is true that Tamil Nadu is not very important for the BJP electorally, not having yielded many seats for the party. And the party’s calculation may be that it could tie up with either of the two Dravidian parties after the 2024 elections, depending on the situation.

That aside, Sanatan Dharma has helped the BJP play to the Hindu gallery, and created discomfort among DMK allies in the Opposition’s INDIA bloc. The DMK has reasons to be worried too given the sword of Enforcement Directorate probes hanging over the heads of its leaders, and threatening to touch supremo and CM Stalin’s house.

In the larger picture, the AIADMK’s exit reinforces the impression that the BJP does not care much about its allies. PM Modi has been saying at rallies that “khichdi (coalition) governments are weak, and that only a “strong” government like his could have got the women’s reservation Bill passed. The BJP can be expected to showcase its “stable government” and “strong leader”, helming India’s rise in the global arena, in the elections.

In 2014, when Narendra Modi first came to power, he chose to rule through the NDA, with 29 allies, even though he did not need them to run a government. He also called the SAARC leaders for his swearing-in ceremony, an imaginative move that represented a new outreach to India’s neighbours. In his first speech after taking over, he talked about reaching out to the “poor”, indicating that the party had to widen its base.

V P Singh, who was the PM for 11 months in 1989-90, used to say that he considered the inclusion of regional parties in his National Front government one of his most important contributions. He felt it gave the regional parties a stake in national politics, and would help curb fissiparous tendencies in the country. He also included the DMK in his ministry even though it had not won a single seat in the 1989 winter general elections.

I K Gujral preferred to let his government go in 1997 than dump DMK ministers, as demanded by the Congress, which supported his government, after the Jain Commission Report indicted the DMK for the LTTE’s activities, which led to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Gujral felt giving the DMK the marching orders would create problems of a different kind.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee kept the Akali Dal by his side not just for the numbers they added to the NDA kitty, but also for the Hindu-Sikh unity the alliance represented in the border state of Punjab, which had seen a movement for a separate Khalistan.

Apart from the imperatives of survival, these leaders were conscious of the fragility of our federal structure, so critical for keeping the country together, and the need to make it work.

As it is, the southern states are agitated about the impending delimitation exercise due in 2026, as it is expected to see a rise in the number of Lok Sabha seats in the North owing to the greater population increase there.

Many feel that delimitation is a ticking time bomb, and has to be defused. Earlier this week, I sat up when a former Union minister from Tamil Nadu told me, “With the number of Lok Sabha seats coming down in Tamil Nadu, do you think we will allow the delimitation to take place?”

The AIADMK’s walkout therefore has implications which go beyond the exit of an ally. The BJP, having a shot at a third term in power, has lost an ally in the South, where the party is anyway weak, and which might have helped it navigate the challenges that lie ahead.

At the end of the day – and we cannot forget this — India is a coalition, a kaleidoscope of races, languages, religions, castes, ethnic groups, North and South, East and West. And it should be ruled like a coalition, whether it is by a brute majority government, or by a simple majority rule, or by an alliance of many parties.

For, a consensual approach ensures that everyone’s voice is heard – even if not always heeded.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of the recently published How Prime Ministers Decide)