Is BJP now closer to AIADMK?

CHENNAI: The BJP's decision to promote Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as campaign committee chairman is likely to have a ripple effect in Tamil Nadu politics.

Sources do not rule out a post-poll alliance between the AIADMK and the BJP now, with the likelihood of the DMK being forced into the company of the Congress again.

Though CM and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa had been firm about her party contesting in an alliance without the BJP or the Congress, her equation with Modi has heightened hopes of Tamil Nadu BJP leaders that she would plump for their party.

"Both the BJP and the AIADMK have been opposed to the Congress and wish to defeat it at the Centre. Uniting our strengths would be better than fighting the party individually," BJP national secretary Dr Thamizhisai Soundararajan told TOI.

Recalling occasions when Modi and Jaya displayed bonhomie towards each other, BJP functionaries were confident a pre-poll arrangement can be worked out. While Modi flew down to take part in Jayalalithaa's oath-taking ceremony in 2011, she returned the gesture by going to Ahmedabad to witness his swearing-in as Gujarat CM for the fourth time. Jayalalithaa also despatched her senior MPs to Modi's Sadbhavana Yatra in 2011.