DIVORCE OF CONVENIENCE

By now, the spectacle of long-time partners making for the exit door is no longer a novel one for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—the undivided Shiv Sena in 2019 and the Shiromani Akali Dal in 2020 are the oft-cited cases that ended in an acrimonious divorce.

- Amarnath K. Menon

When the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) joined that list on September 25, it was not entirely unexpected either. Relations between the BJP and its most influential National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner in the south had started to fray ever since K. Annamalai took over as the saffron party's Tamil Nadu president in July 2021. The strident 39-year-old, a 2011 batch Indian Police Service officer who resigned in 2019 to join politics, does not miss an opportunity to let loose some vocal pyrotechnics. His manner suited a party that, having largely had to play second fiddle to the AIADMK for years, didn't seem to mind a spot of overcorrection-even if it meant angering its old friend.

Annamalai believes the BJP has to go it alone in Tamil Nadu if it wants to shatter the ceiling on its growth imposed by the 50-year stranglehold of the Dravidian parties—the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its rival, the AIADMK. In June, his comments against the late J. Jayalalithaa, former CM and iconic AIADMK chief, aggravated ties that had already been rendered tenuous by his constant criticism of the AIADMK. Before that, when Jayalalithaa’s demise in 2016 left a vacuum in state politics and led to an open struggle for supremacy between AIADMK’s current chief, Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) and his predecessor as CM, O. Panneerselvam (OPS), the BJP had moved in to take advantage of the schism. The power that came from being the Goliath at the Centre allowed it to play arbiter, and then a silent big brother. Moving to a less silent mode in pursuit of its expansion plans was natural progression.