Former Minister and secretary of Villupuram AIADMK north district C.Ve. Shanmugam on Tuesday night said the alliance with the BJP had cost the AIADMK dearly and resulted in its poor showing in the last Assembly elections.
Addressing a meeting of party workers at Vanur, Mr. Shanmugam said that the AIADMK lost a sizeable chunk of votes of minorities because of its alliance with the BJP.
Referring to Villupuram Assembly constituency, he said the assembly segment had about 20,000 minority voters including 18,000 in Villupuram town alone. However, the party lost the support of minorities due to its alliance with the BJP, he said.
Mr. Shanmugam felt that the erstwhile AIADMK government had implemented several welfare schemes in the last 10 years and had earned a good name among the people.
“They (people) too wanted this government to continue. However, all calculations went wrong due to a combination of factors including alliance and minority votes,” he said.
“If this [alliance] was not the case, the DMK would not have been in power today. Even if they had accidentally come to power, it would have only been a coalition government,” he contended.
He appealed to the party workers not to labour under the mistaken notion that the people had given overwhelming support to the DMK.
