BJP will destroy AIADMK: Prominent Muslim face of AIADMK, Anwar Raajhaa, deserts party, joins DMK

In a major blow to the principal opposition, AIADMK, ahead of the 2026 Assembly election, the party’s prominent Muslim face and former minister Anwar Raajhaa, a vocal critic of the alliance with the BJP, joined the ruling DMK in the presence of Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday.

On joining the DMK, he told the media that the BJP would gobble up and destroy the AIADMK as it had done other regional parties across the country. ”Derailed from its ideological path, the AIADMK is now hostage to the BJP. Whichever party the BJP aligns with, devouring and destroying them is its intention, as was the case with the Shiv Sena and National Congress Party. Wiping out the AIADMK and confronting the DMK is the BJP’s agenda,” he told mediapersons, explaining the reason for leaving the party he had been associated with for more than five decades.

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“In his three interviews, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had not even once mentioned that Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) is the chief ministerial candidate. He has been reiterating that the NDA will secure the mandate and the BJP will be part of the government. Even EPS could not declare that he is the CM face in the event of AIADMK winning the election. But, like (US President) Trump claiming that he brought about the truce (in the Indo-Pak conflict), the fate of EPS is similar to that, and hence he is parroting for the last 10 days that he is the CM nominee,” Raajhaa said, slamming the BJP and EPS.

Praising the leadership of the Chief Minister and DMK president, like all newcomers into the party, he said, “Stalin happens to be the only leader who can protect the Dravidian ideology and its cardinal principles like state autonomy and linguistic rights of our language.”

Stung by Raajhaa’s move to desert the party, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) has expelled him as the party’s Organising Secretary and from the primary membership. Though it was expected, the desertion of the Muslim leader had rattled the AIADMK leadership.

Earlier, arriving at the DMK headquarters, Anna Arivalayam, Raajhaa was welcomed into the party fold by Stalin, who presented him with a shawl and the DMK membership card.

He was disenchanted with the AIADMK’s re-entry into the BJP-led NDA and had openly criticised the decision to align with the saffron party at the party fora, concerned about the desertion of the party’s base among the religious minorities. Earlier, he had blamed the loss in the 2021 Assembly poll on the alliance with the BJP. Now, his entry into the DMK will help the party to further consolidate the minorities’ support in the crucial assembly election.

A strongman from the southern Ramanathapuram district, he was in the AIADMK when the party was founded by the late matinee icon and Chief Minister MG Ramachandran (MGR) in 1972. MGR had elevated him to the party’s highest policy-making body, and along with Jayalalithaa, they were inducted, though not as ministers. In the split after MGR’s demise, he was with the faction led by MGR’s widow, VN Janak,i but eventually switched over to Jayalalithaa’s side.

In the 2021 Assembly election, he was denied the ticket as he was opposed to the alliance with the BJP. Following his interview praising VK Sasikala, he was axed from the party but rejoined last August. He is among the last of the few known Muslim faces that the AIADMK had. With the minorities continuing to be a captive vote bank of the DMK, Raajhaa’s desertion would be a fatal blow for the AIADMK, particularly in the southern districts where the party’s vote share has gone down, relegating it to third and fourth place in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.