Successive elections since 2019 have proved that the Modi charisma and Shah's strategy do not work in Tamil Nadu.
Now, they have to see next year if the DMK is capable of losing, whether to an existing NDA alliance or an expanded version, if one becomes necessary and possible, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
If YouTube interviews with strangers on the street are to be believed, the BJP is now coming to be seen as a 'party-splitter' in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, as has been the 'wont' in other parts of the country.
That is apart from the party from being pro-Hindutva elsewhere, but with not much effect in the state.
Worse still, the ruling party at the Centre is being accused of splitting one alliance partner after the other, for short-term politico-electoral gains, and then following it up with efforts to re-unite those factions that seldom work.
The first was the AIADMK leader of the BJP-NDA alliance in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019 and the assembly elections two years later.
Further down the line, the alliance itself broke as the BJP's handiwork had weakened the AIADMK, whose cadres attributed their past losses to the national party's Hindutva tag.
There is open acknowledgement that BJP-RSS ideologues were behind O Panneerselvam's dharma yudh after quitting as AIADMK chief minister after supremo Jayalalithaa's death in December 2016. It got a lot of media glare and ended there.
Today, the party is in full control of successor chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, for whose hand in the assembly polls next year, the BJP has sort of ditched OPS and a third faction under T T V Dhinakaran.
Just now, the chances are that OPS and TTV will remain as 'hangers-on' in the BJP-NDA alliance, which has proclaimed EPS as their chief ministerial candidate.
It means EPS does not have to talk to the other two directly or accommodate them per se.
The seats that they get to contest will thus have to go out of the BJP's share, and will be projected as the NDA's share.
This was how the two contested the Lok Sabha poll last year as partners in the BJP-NDA, when of course the AIADMK was not an ally.
If this was the fate of the AIADMK, the recent family feud in the PMK founder's family has brought back to light the BJP's role in forcing the party to sign up for the NDA in last year's polls.
The one-upmanship between PMK founder Ramadoss, 85, and his son Anbumani, around the time BJP's chief strategist Amit Shah met with party cadres at the southern temple town of Madurai, kicked up those memories.
Accordingly, Ramadoss, Sr had finalised last year's poll alliance with the AIADMK, with only the formal pact to be initialled the next morning.
In the night, it was said, the BJP talked/forced Anbumani to sign up, with the result the father had to yield to his son's pleadings.
This time round, the father-son familial feud burst out in the open with Anbumani demonstrating his hold over the organisation, and Ramadoss underscoring that the transferrable five per cent Vanniar community voters are still with him.
The BJP, through the party's RSS trouble-shooter S Gurumurthy, seemed to have talked both PMK factions to sue for truce now, and peace later on.
A chastened Anbumani has since apologised to Ramadoss in public on Father's Day, June 15, and promised to work under his direction -- but indicating that he would still be the party boss.
For now at least, Anbumani has since made light of the situation by blaming the ruling DMK for the PMK's family troubles, which was all about personal egos.
In particular and of consequence was Anbumani's reiteration that the 'PMK alliance' would win the assembly polls, but with clarifying if he meant the BJP-AIADMK alliance, or else...
Meanwhile, social media, and more so YouTube analysts are working overtime to recall how in Madurai, Shah only asserted that the BJP share of power in a coalition government next year, without reiterating his April commitment in Chennai that EPS would be their chief minister candidate.
When AIADMK leaders started murmuring their protests, state BJP chief Nainar Nagendran had to underscore the recent commitment.
But Nagendran is not getting enough backing from immediate predecessor K Annamalai, who still seems to be licking his wounds, over being replaced despite good work.
Team Annamalai feels that his replacement owed not to any independent reasons that the BJP national leadership might have had, but only because EPS would not agree to reviving the alliance otherwise.
That is not good news for Shah, as the party had talked the former IPS officer to quit the job and join the BJP in native Tamil Nadu -- with a possible hidden promise to elevate him as state unit chief at the first instance.
Shah was visibly surprised by the thunderous applause from party cadres in Madurai when he acknowledged Annamalai's presence while commencing his address.
Only a minute earlier, the ovation for incumbent Nainar was much less.
Both before and after the Madurai event, Annamalai has slowly but surely begun irritating the AIADMK ally in general and EPS in particular, through his public speeches and social media posts.
Nainar's official direction for party leaders and cadres not to say anything to irritate the AIADMK ally does not seem to apply to Annamalai.
This, according to reports, has led to Nainar urging EPS, who was only an AIADMK colleague, to ensure that the latter's cadres and second-line leaders did not react to Annamalai kind of irritants.
EPS has obliged, but how far can he hold back the cadres remains to be seen.
Where does it all leave the alliance and its ability to unseat the DMK regime of Chief Minister M K Stalin? Election issues will get better defined only closer to the polling day, and for now individual parties are going by past numbers.
After shouting 'Hurray' at the revival of the AIADMK alliance in April, the BJP strategists seem convinced now that they will need more than the pre-2024 combine, in which the PMK and a host of minor parties too were partners.
In context, actor-politician Vijay's TVK seems to have caught the eyes of multiple players in the NDA combine, for a joint fight or a new front -- yes, with or without the AIADMK in it.
Vijay reportedly will find it difficult to sign up with the NDA after declaring that the DMK and the BJP were his enemies.
And for him to be seen as kowtowing to one of them, that too the BJP-ruled Centre, does not go down well with his cadres, reportedly numbering a high two-crore (!).
Vijay's fans have dreamt of him becoming CM, and the membership they claim should be a sure-fire first step.
Yet, neither the leader, nor the cadres, are battle-scarred, to be able to strategise for the last mile and the last minute.
Vijay may also face a negative campaign, which is now occurring, if at all, before the radar.
If social media is to be believed -- and this has not been denied -- an IRS official, who took voluntary retirement to join the TVK and be made an office-bearer on day one, had led an IT raid on the actor a couple of years ago.
It is not about the raid, but about the possibility of the officer's 'influence' over Vijay to float the TVK, which from all accounts was aimed at weakening the anti-Hindutva votes of the DMK-Congress combine.
Then, there is another actor-politician Seeman's NTK, which to its credit also has an eight per cent vote-share in 2024 when it had no chance of winning a single Lok Sabha seat.
However, the self-delusion within the BJP-AIADMK alliance can only do more harm than good.
To begin with, adding more parties will make it a 'Grand Alliance' which the ruling DMK-led alliance will find difficult to defeat, but which (alone!) will ensure that there will be a coalition government at the end of it.
The AIADMK does not like it. Party leaders are talking about the AIADMK having to contest 150 to 160 seats in a total of 234 if it has to ensure outright victory.
They cite the 2011 assembly polls when under Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK contested 160 and won 150 -- of course, at the head of a grand alliance.
BJP strategists should also remember that they may be in the wrong if they have concluded that the NDA's 18.5 per cent in 2024 Lok Sabha polls compared favourably to the AIADMK's 23.05 per cent, in what essentially was a three-cornered contest, with the victorious DMK combine obtaining 47 per cent.
The BJP-NDA, under a different combo and with DMDK founder, the late actor-politician Vijayakanth leading it, polled 18.5 per cent even in the earlier 2014 LS polls.
That was the election in which the late AIADMK chief minister Jayalalithaa, gave the 'Modi-ya, indha Lady-ya?' campaign-call, and won 37 of 39 seats.
The rest of India had voted Modi for the first time, and the NDA won two seats (18.5 per cent).
The Opposition DMK drew a blank with a low 24 per cent votes. Even in alliance, the DMK combine, which did not include the Congress (4.5 per cent) and the two communist parties (one per cent, together) managed only a total of 27 per cent.
Yet, in the assembly polls two years hence in 2016, the ruling AIADMK won 136 seats with 41 per cent. The DMK-Congress combine managed 98 seats and, yes, a 40-per cent vote-share.
The BJP, contesting alone, returned to its traditional vote-share of three per cent.
Likewise in the past, the DMK in 1991, following Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, and the AIADMK in 1996 after Jaya's first term as chief minister, were trounced with their lowest 22 and 21 per cent vote-share, respectively.
But in the very next election they bounced back.
There is thus a lesson for the AIADMK, too. Rather, what the BJP should remember while negotiating with the others.
Just as the DMK came back in 1996, to win back power, and do much better in 2016 compared to the Lok Sabha polls two years earlier, the AIADMK, too, has had its good times, even on other occasions.
After the 1996 debacle, when CM Jaya, too, lost her Bargur seat, in the 2001 assembly polls that followed, the AIADMK under her leadership swept out the DMK government.
The AIADMK won 132, yes, of 140 seats contested on its own and 196 seats for the alliance, with a combined vote-share of 50 per cent.
Yes, there is no Jayalalithaa or Karunanidhi to lend heft to the campaigns of the AIADMK and the DMK, respectively, but then the TN voters have got used to being without them at the helm.
The BJP, too, has not produced a charismatic leader to take their place, and the choice of Annamalai, a campaigner with an instinct definitely for the pulse of the people, did not help last year.
Successive elections since 2019 have also proved that the Modi charisma and Shah's strategy does not work in 'Dravidian' Tamil Nadu.
Now, they have to see next year if the DMK is capable of losing, whether to an existing NDA alliance or an expanded version, if one becomes necessary and possible!
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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