‘BJP doesn’t have 11% vote in Tamil Nadu’: Karti Chidambaram says defeating DMK without AIADMK not possible

Karti Chidambaram, Congress MP from Sivaganga, believes that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cannot defeat the DMK without an alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. He also believes that the BJP’s vote share is less than 11 per cent in the southern state as it includes votes for some caste-based parties’ candidates who contested on its symbol. 

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the saffron party could not win any Lok Sabha seats but recorded an increase in its vote share from over 3 per cent in 2019 to 11.24 per cent. However, Karti, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, said that this figure includes votes caste for some caste-based parties whose candidates contested on BJP’s symbol. 

“BJP did not contest alone. It had alliances. It had an alliance with the PMK, a completely caste-based party concentrated in the northern regions of Tamil Nadu. So their votes are getting added to the BJP. So when you’re looking at the BJP’s front vote share, you have to account for the PMK’s vote share. The BJP had many alliances with caste-specific parties and those caste-specific candidates contested on the BJP symbol,” Chidambaram said in an interview with The Quint. 

The Sivaganga MP further said that if next time around, the BJP contests without these caste-based parties and caste-specific candidates, it will not get this vote. “So, I do not believe the BJP has an 11% vote. Yes, they would have marginally increased the vote, particularly in the upper-cast sections of society in certain urban areas. But they’re definitely not 11 per cent. They’re definitely not double-digit.”

Chidambaram was among few leaders who had predicted a complete rout for the BJP in the southern state ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. When asked what gave him the confidence to predict defeat for the saffron party, he said: “I have been involved in electoral politics since 1996 so I have a fair sense of what happens on the ground.” 

He claimed the people in Tamil Nadu don’t subscribe to the Hindutva, which is being propagated by the BJP. “The BJP’s Hindutva is a very North Indian, upper-cast, and vegetarian Hindutva. “And that doesn’t gel well with the people of Tamil Nadu. Tamils are the most Orthodox Hindus in India. We per square kilometer have more temples than any other state in India. We break more coconuts than anybody else. We are the most ritualistic people in India. So you can’t come and preach Hinduism to us.” 

Politically, he said, alliances matter in Tamil Nadu. “Party vote banks are pretty set and are transferable when it comes to an alliance. And that also plays a big part. If you notice, the AIADMK and the BJP contesting separately…and the AIDMK is always an underestimated party in Tamil Nadu. The BJP sometimes thinks they are a larger political formation than the AIADMK – that’s not true. The AIDMK is not given its due respect because they are a very rural political party. So the national press somehow diminishes their presence. Their vote bank is set.”

Chidambaram suggested that without AIADMK, defeating the DMK is impossible for the BJP. “It’s electorally impossible. The BJP is a gravely exaggerated political party. In Tamil Nadu, you have given a megaphone and a magnifying glass to the BJP and so they’re always blown beyond proportion. The Delhi media has learned the name of the BJP Tamil Nadu president, I’m sure they can’t name the previous president. Because this current BJP president is all over the place, particularly in social media, and is very liberal with his intemperate quotes to the media so you’re noticing him but that has not translated into a ground gain.”

The BJP under the leadership of its state president K Annamalai decided to break the alliance with the AIADMK. Some political analysts believed that if the BJP and AIADMK had contested together, the DMK-led alliance would not have swept the state. The DMK-led ruling alliance bagged all 39 Lok Sabha seats.