With NEET, highway stand, BJP shows who’s in charge of alliance

On February 19, when the BJP formally entered into an alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Union minister for railways Piyush Goyal said it is an AIADMK-led alliance in the state. But, Goyal’s statement had a life of only four days.


On February 23, a video showing BJP president Amit Shah instructing OPS at a meeting in Madurai airport that henceforth all the “programmes in Tamil Nadu will be NDA programmes” went viral on social media, forcing the AIADMK leaders to work overtime on damage control.

While the campaign heat helped the AIADMK divert attention from such an embarrassment, the developments over the last couple of days have again raised the query as to which party is in control of the campaign narrative. “There is no need to scrap the test (NEET). We will speak to AIADMK leaders and convince them,” Goyal told reporters in Chennai last Friday. On Sunday, it was the turn of Union minister for highways Nitin Gadkari, who once again pushed the case for the Salem – Chennai 8-lane expressway, despite the Madras high court scrapping the project. “The project is important for industrial development. We will talk to the farmers and offer them higher compensation,” Gadkari said in Salem, in the presence of EPS.

The developments in the last 2-3 days have left the AIADMK leaders squirming, but they are helpless. “This shows the way in which this alliance was formed and how the AIADMK leaders were forced to bend before the BJP,” pointed out a senior AIADMK leader, on condition of anonymity.

“The BJP is for NEET and that is that party’s stand. But, by saying that the AIADMK is not against NEET, but wanted it only to be held in Tamil, they are changing the narrative,” he said. “It is not only NEET and 8-lane expressway, PM Modi on Saturday spoke in favour of Triple Talaq at his public meeting in Theni, much against the AIADMK’s avowed stand against it. This is not a cordial alliance. One party is bossing over others in the alliance,” the AIADMK leader said.

“Both Goyal and Gadkari had clearly explained the issues, citing rulings by the courts. While the Supreme Court itself has said NEET cannot be scrapped, it is the Congress which has taken Tamil Nadu voters for a ride by offering to scrap it,” BJP spokesman Narayanan Thirupathy told TOI.

Political analysts feel that with very little time left for campaigning, BJP’s forced narrative may not cause much damage. “Having taken a position, the BJP, which wants to showcase itself as a very competent national player, cannot yield to any domestic pressure in any state. While these could create lots of problems among cadres, the damage could be very limited, since we are almost at the end of the campaign phase,” N Sathiya Moorthy, political analyst said.