AIADMK declares itself NDA leader in Tamil Nadu, General Council authorises EPS to finalise alliance for 2026 polls

Asserting that the AIADMK is the leader of the NDA in Tamil Nadu, the party’s General Council on Wednesday empowered General Secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) to determine the alliance partners for expanding the coalition with the sole aim of dethroning the ruling DMK in the 2026 Assembly election.

A resolution was passed at the General Council meeting, attended by over 4,000 functionaries at Vanagaram on the outskirts of Chennai, which also formally endorsed the AIADMK’s return to the NDA in order to defeat the “common enemy”—the ruling DMK, which it alleged was steeped in “scientific corruption” beginning from Chief Minister Stalin’s family onward.

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Vesting EPS with absolute authority to decide who should be admitted into the NDA is seen as a sign of flexibility in accommodating former Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam (OPS), who heads the splinter group AIADMK Workers’ Rights Retrieval Committee, and T.T.V. Dhinakaran of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), another breakaway outfit.

This move, too, is reportedly being nudged by the BJP’s national leadership, which wants them on board for a united fight against the DMK. Another reason for reiterating AIADMK’s leadership of the NDA in Tamil Nadu is to counter murmurs within the BJP about EPS being the Chief Ministerial face of the alliance and to put to rest any talk of a post-election coalition government.

Though both OPS and Dhinakaran had walked out of the NDA after their hopes of returning to the AIADMK with BJP support evaporated, OPS is still banking on the BJP. He recently met Union Home Minister and BJP strategist Amit Shah in the national capital, and since then has been advocating for the unification of the AIADMK.

Keeping the party cadre in good humour, EPS, in his address, expressed confidence that the AIADMK-led alliance would return to power by winning not less than 210 of the 234 Assembly seats in 2026. He cited past election results and statistics to emphasise that the AIADMK would certainly bounce back, just as it did in 2001 after being reduced to only four seats in 1996.

“Even some within our party are sceptical, and hence it is my duty to dispel their misconceptions. In 2021, we lost many seats by narrow margins, and that was due to the backstabbing of a few in our own ranks. MGR launched the party to remove from office the evil force that the DMK is, and the party will come to power in 2026,” he said.

The meeting passed a total of 16 resolutions, most of them targeting the alleged failures of the Stalin government on various fronts. It accused the DMK government of presiding over a collapse of law and order, rising unemployment, and pushing the state into a vicious debt trap.