Chennai, Jan 31 (BPNS)

In a major political development, the Tamil Nadu BJP state president, K. Annamalai has said that his party would contest the upcoming urban local body polls on its own. The party, according to Annamalai would field its candidates in all the constituencies in the state. He said that the BJP functionaries wanted the party to contest a larger number of seats in the elections.

However, the state president said that the alliance with AIADMK would continue for the 2024 General elections just like the 2019 general elections and the 2021 assembly elections.

Annamalai in a press conference at Chennai on Monday said that his party does not have any problems with the senior AIADMK leaders O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K. Palaniswami and added that the national leaders of the BJP have approved of the stand taken by the state unit of the party.

The BJP leader said that this decision would also help AIADMK leadership to provide more seats to their party leaders. The former IPS officer turned politician said that the AIADMK had provided the BJP 10% of the total seats but the BJP wanted more share of seats and that in local body elections, it was difficult to share the seats.

It may be noted that several senior leaders of the BJP were pressuring the state leadership to go it alone in the urban local body elections. In a brainstorming session held by the party leaders along with the state functionaries of the RSS, it was brought to the notice that in Urban local body polls, the chances of winning is rested more with the ruling party. This has brought the senior leaders of the party to try and field as many party candidates and to assess the grass-root strength of the party. In some constituencies, the BJP has a 10% vote share while in many constituencies the vote share of the saffron party is very poor ranging from 2 to 3%.