DRAVIDIAN ROADBLOCK

Things are not looking good for the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance. In fact, some utterances coming out of Tamil Nadu should count as both an embarrassment and a warning for the BJP brass.

- Amarnath K. Menon

On June 4, Sellur K. Raju, former minister and AIADMK’s Madurai West MLA, accused state BJP chief K. Ann amalai of “creating unnecess ary flutter” for personal aggrandisement. He was alluding to frequent claims by Annamalai on the BJP’s rosy prospe cts in Dravidian land—especially his remark that it’s now the state’s third largest party, eclipsing the Congress, which dominated the landscape before the advent of the Dravidian parties in the ’60s. “The crowd that gathers for the BJP is like a swarm of crows that will fly away if they get nothing,” Raju said, not stinting on colourful metaphor. “Our cadres are not crows waiting for breadcrumbs. They are guided by ideology.”