Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s pronouncement in Madurai last week that the BJP would sweep to power in Tamil Nadu in the April-May 2026 Assembly election appears a little far-fetched. The party managed to win four seats in the 234-member Assembly in 2021 but drew a blank in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, despite its much-hyped poll campaign under the high-profile state BJP chief K. Annamalai.

Amit Shah’s assertion that the people of Tamil Nadu will back the BJP is based on the hope that the party’s allies in the state will deliver. The BJP, recently, stitched up an alliance with the AIADMK two years after the southern party walked out of a tie-up with the saffron party.

The AIADMK, led by Edappadi Palaniswami, is confident that it will defeat the DMK that is battling........

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