While Sasikala’s announcement to quit politics came as a shocker for her nephew TTV Dhinakaran, he seems to have made his point to climb up in the Tamil Nadu elections with the help of Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM).
Firebrand Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM will make its foray into the southern state contesting from three constituencies in alliance with TTV Dhinakaran's AMMK. A party release, on Monday, said the two had decided to face the elections in both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Will Dhinakaran and Owaisi’s alliance affect DMK?
AMMK has, in past, managed to dent AIADMK’s vote share in the last Lok Sabha polls. Dhinakaran alone has proved as a strong opposition when he contested independently from R K Nagar constituency and defeated both the ruling AIADMK and DMK.
“Many have sympathy for Sasikala and Dhinakaran as she had to undergo a four-year prison term. They also think she was threatened to withdraw from politics. Even a section of them voting for AMMK would be enough to spoil AIADMK’s chances,” a political leader told The Indian Express.
Other leaders quoted by The Indian Express believed that AMMK enjoyed support from the Thevar community which was favoured and nurtured by Sasikala when Jayalalithaa was alive.
However, on the other hand, the AIMIM has been allotted three Tamil Nadu seats that have a significant Muslim population – Vaniyambadi, Sankarapuram and Krishnagiri. Even though the party doesn’t have much of a presence in the state, it had won 10,000 votes in Vaniyabmadi, in the 2016 Assembly polls.
In this scenario, DMK is likely to give strong competition to AIMIM as most Muslim parties including Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), have joined the DMK camp that also enjoys a significant hold over the Muslim minorities in the state.
It would be interesting to see how Owaisi woos Muslims voters in the state that once supported Jayalalithaa.