BJP to confirm tie-up with Vijayakanth's DMDK in Tamil Nadu?

The BJP has been working overtime to cobble together alliances in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections, leaving no stone unturned to ensure a return to power after a gap of ten years. And in what will be a huge morale booster to the party, Firstpost political editor Sanjay Singh reports that the BJP is expected to announce a tie-up with Vijayakanth’s DMDK in Tamil Nadu, after the Election Commission announces its poll schedule later today. It has already come to an understanding with the MDMK and PMK in the state. “An alliance with the DMDK, which will come only days after BJP formally stitched an alliance with Ramvilas Paswan has sent out a message that Narendra Modi has succeeded in generating a ‘wave’, at least in terms of the BJP looking for allies, from South to Eastern India”, the report added. [caption id=“attachment_1419801” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  This will be a huge boost to the party: AFP[/caption] This comes in the wake of a report in the Indian Express, which said, “While PMK leader and former Union minister Anbumany Ramadoss met Rajnath a while back on the issue of a pre-poll alliance, party sources said the BJP chief recently spoke to a point person of DMDK leader Vijaykanth over phone.” If the tie up is indeed confirmed, it will come as a huge boost to the BJP in the state, especially in the wake of the latest findings by the Lokniti-IBN tracker. With the numbers showing that the national party is currently holding onto a projected 12 percent of the voteshare, it could well turn out to be the kingmaker in the state. The DMDK currently holds 4 percent. Given that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is only projected to win 30 percent of the vote in the state, what these numbers and this alliance will mean, is that the BJP will have Jayalalithaa exactly where it wants her. Because if the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister wants to make any impact on the national stage, she is going to have to ditch the third front in favour of her ‘dear friend’ Narendra Modi. The latest tie up comes even as the party stitched up an alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP in Bihar at the expense of Congress. And in Maharashtra, even as the Shiv Sena cried foul over Nitin Gadkari’s highly publicised meet with MNS chief Raj Thackeray, senior BJP leaders were optimistic that a deal between the two estranged brothers, Raj and Uddhav Thackery could still be brokered. Gadkari had asked Raj not to field any candidate in the Lok Sabha elections, so as to consolidate all the anti-Congress-NCP votes in Maharashtra. Sources said Raj had promised Gadkari that he would give serious thought to his proposal, but now a rather bitter reaction from Sena has temporarily halted building up of a grand alliance. Jilted by both Ram Vilas Paswan and K Chandrashekar Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), the Congress is now focusing on somehow salvaging a proposed alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar, even if it means bowing to some difficult terms put up by the wily RJD chief. Bereft of major alliances that had been its forte in 2004 and 2009, the Congress has is trying hard to win the support of some social groups by offering community-specific legislative sops, reservation to Jats in jobs and education in institutions run by central government, and make the SC-ST act more favourable to the community.