Lok Sabha polls: AIADMK will not form alliance with any national party, says Edappadi K Palaniswami

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam will not form an alliance with any national party for the Lok Sabha elections, the party’s General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami said on Sunday, The Hindu reported.

The party had left the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in September.

Its rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which is Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, is part of the Opposition INDIA bloc.

On Sunday, Palaniswami said that the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam will be part of a “special alliance”, details of which will be shared soon, The New Indian Express reported.

Palaniswami accused Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin of accumulating power for his family at the cost of the state's welfare.

“The DMK [Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam] government failed to get the state’s share of [Cauvery] river water from Karnataka,” he alleged, reported The New Indian Express. “MK Stalin was too weak to urge Karnataka, where its ally, the Congress, is ruling. The failure resulted in loss of kuruvai crop over lakhs of acres. The farmers are angry.”

Palaniswami also accused the state’s ruling party of neglecting minorities.

“Stalin is attempting minority outreach,” he said. “It is the AIADMK that has always stood with Muslims and Christians.”

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had severed ties with the BJP in September, days after it criticised the Hindutva party’s...

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