Former AIADMK leader joins DMK after party expels him
He was expelled from the AIADMK by its general secretary EPS over “anti-party activities” following his comments against the party’s alliance with the BJP for the 2026 assembly elections.
Former parliamentarian and minority leader of the opposition AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, A Anwhar Raajhaa, joined rival and ruling party DMK on Monday, hours after he was expelled from the AIADMK by its general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) over “anti-party activities” following his comments against the party’s alliance with the BJP for the 2026 assembly elections.
“It’s not an alliance, AIADMK is trapped in BJP’s hands,” Raajhaa told reporters outside of DMK’s party office. Union home minister Amit Shah has pitched for power sharing which was reiterated by former state president K Annamalai last week when he said if AIADMK has a problem with that they should speak directly to the national BJP leader. In the wake of Annamalai’s comments and Stalin’s criticism of the alliance, EPS said a day ago that “AIADMK are not fools” to form a coalition government.
“The home minister has said thrice that there will be a coalition government in Tamil Nadu. Not once has he said that EPS will be the chief minister. He has not mentioned EPS’ name at all,” Raajhaa said. “Just like how Trump kept saying that he brokered peace between India and Pakistan, EPS is claiming that he is the chief ministerial candidate…BJP’s agenda is to break the AIADMK and become the principal opposition to the DMK,” he said referring to similar political manoeuvres in West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
“He has lost his principles, lost his service to the public,” Narayanan, BJP state vice president said. “The party has given him so much, and now that you have differences, it is not right to shift your loyalty to DMK. Now he is defeated. An individual cannot cause any problems for a party; he is just an individual... Whatever schemes are given by the BJP government are not divided into minorities or majorities... Doing religious or communal politics is not going to pay. People vote for BJP for its growth-oriented politics. All are equal; we don’t see religion...”
This is the second time Raajhaa has been expelled from the AIADMK. He was expelled in 2021 for favouring the expelled leader VK Sasikala’s re-entry into the AIADMK.
However, Raajhaa was brought back in 2023 after the AIADMK walked out of the alliance with BJP blaming Annamalai for insulting its leaders. On April 11, Shah announced that AIADMK and BJP will fight the 2026 elections together and replaced Annamalai with Nainar Nagendran.
Raajhaa was elected as an MP and MLA from Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district which is minority dominated. He was minister for Labour in J Jayalalithaa’s cabinet between 2001 and 2006.
