New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has reiterated that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will form a government in Tamil Nadu and that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be its part after the 2026 state elections, reigniting tensions between the BJP and its ally All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
The AIADMK insists that it will govern alone. Tamil Nadu has not seen a coalition government since 1967.
In an interview with Daily Thanthi Group Friday, Amit Shah said, “National Democratic Alliance will certainly form the government, and the BJP will be part of it.” Responding to a question about who would be the chief ministerial candidate, Amit Shah told the newspaper that the BJP will contest the polls under the leadership of the AIADMK. “The chief minister will be from the AIADMK,” he clarified to the Daily Thanthi Group, but at the same time, did not name AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami as the CM candidate.
It is not the first time that Amit Shah has declared that Tamil Nadu will get a coalition government. On 11 April 2025, when he was in Chennai to revive the AIADMK-BJP ties, he said, “A coalition government will be formed after the elections,” adding that Edappadi K. Palaniswami will be leading the fight in the upcoming polls.
To the Daily Thanthi Group, Amit Shah also said that the BJP was not going to create a narrative that the current government in Tamil Nadu was working against the interests of the Hindus. “We need not make an issue here. If you speak against any ideology, you spontaneously antagonise people. We need not do anything. The people of Tamil Nadu will make them pay for their sins,” he told the newspaper.
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TN will not accept coalition: AIADMK
Amit Shah’s comments reiterating the formation of a coalition government have sparked tensions as Opposition AIADMK is against power-sharing arrangements. The AIADMK has consistently claimed it will form the government independently.
The contradiction has created friction within the BJP-AIADMK alliance, particularly since Amit Shah has avoided naming Edappadi K. Palaniswami as the CM candidate.
Speaking to ThePrint, AIADMK spokesperson and ex-minister Vaigaichelvan said the people of the state would not be in favour of a coalition government.
He also recalled how such a stand in the past failed in Tamil Nadu. “In the 1980 assembly election, DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Congress shared an equal number of seats, proposing a coalition government. However, people of the state rejected the idea of a coalition government and gave a single majority to the AIADMK,” Vaigaichelvan said.
Speaking to ThePrint, Tamilisai Soundararajan, former Telangana Governor and ex-president of the BJP, claimed that whatever Amit Shah said was twisted to create confusion within the BJP-AIADMK alliance. “Home Minister Amit Shah’s statements are quite clear. We will fight the elections as an alliance and form the government as an alliance. People are twisting it as a coalition government—which is unwanted,” she said.
It was not just in 1980. In 2011, when DMK contested just 119 of 234 assembly seats—just above the majority mark—the DMK-led alliance not only lost the polls but stood third after the Vijayakanth-led Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK). In that election, the DMK won just 23 seats while its alliance partner, Congress, secured five, and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) secured three seats.
In the 2006 assembly election, the DMK contested as many as 132 seats, and its alliance partners, including Congress, PMK, and Communist parties, contested the remaining seats. DMK won just 96 seats—way below the majority mark—but formed a minority government then, with the external support of its alliance partners.
According to political analysts, the state has never been in favour of coalition governments since the Dravidian parties entered the electoral foray in the 1960s.
Political analyst N. Sathiyamoorthy told ThePrint that the collective mindset of the state was to have a stable government without any chaos.
“Dravidian parties came to the electoral foray against the national parties. Every time the Dravidian parties came to power, their alliances remained intact and stable. However, whenever an internal feud breaks out in the alliance over sharing power, it is shown the door,” Sathiyamoorthy told ThePrint. “The state has been witnessing it since the death of former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran (MGR). Until the Dravidian parties are strong enough to get a single majority, there is no scope for a coalition government.”
Keezhadi pride of country: Amit Shah
On the possibility of actor-turned-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) joining the BJP-AIADMK alliance, Amit Shah told the Daily Thanthi Group that there was still enough time before the election. “Everything will be clear at the right time,” he said.
He also said that the political plank of the BJP-AIADMK alliance will be the failure of the DMK government, as well as the success of the Modi government. “If you analyse the results of the Lok Sabha polls from the prism of the NDA, you will find that the NDA was winning,” he said.
Amit Shah, speaking about the Dravidian politics and the social justice and state autonomy ideas of the DMK, clarified that the BJP stance was clear—it never opposed the vision of a prosperous Tamil Nadu, Tamil language, and Tamil culture.
Responding to the accusation slapped by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on the Centre—it is trying to obliterate the ancient civilisation in Keezhadi by rejecting a report of archaeologist Amarnath Ramakrishna on his excavations in the Sivaganga district—Amit Shah told the newspaper that an ancient civilisation excavated in any part of India is a matter of pride for the entire country.
“But the world will only accept the existence of the civilisation only if there is evidence, according to the international parameters. I hope the Tamil Nadu government will cooperate. Everyone is proud, and nobody has a problem,” he said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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