BJP State president K Annamalai, however, did not feel that the BJP would have done better by fighting the polls along with the AIADMK, saying that it would not be right to just add the votes polled by both the parties and conclude that together they would have got the same votes. For once an alliance happens, the electoral dynamics could change, he said Annamalai was speaking to the media at the Coimbatore airport when he blamed the AIADMK for the split. He said that the AIADMK leaders expected to get the votes of a community by snapping ties with the BJP but ended up aligning with only a group having fundamentalist links.
Pointing out that the AIADMK had secured very low votes in three Assembly constituencies in Coimbatore – a percentage that would not qualify to get the deposit back – he expressed no regret over the BJP going it alone and told the cadre, some of whom were taking extreme steps like tonsuring the heads or cutting their fingers, to wait for the day when the party would win elections on its own. Referring to AIADMK top leader and former Minister S P Velumani expressing the view that If the AIADMK and BJP had not broken the ties, together they would have won 30 to 35 seats, Annamalai said that it looked that AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palanisami and Velumani were at loggerheads. Velumani said that the split came about because of Annamalai, who went overboard in criticizing AIADMK icons like C N Annadurai and J Jayalalithaa.
But Annamalai questioned.
