On Monday, All India's Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam officially announced its withdrawal from the National Democratic Alliance led by Bharatiya Janata Party.
Shortly after the decision was announced by the deputy general secretary of the party, KP Munusamy, cadres welcomed the move with bursting fire crackers. The immediate reason behind the move was the critical remarks made by the state BJP chief K Annamalai about the late Dravidian stalwart C N Annadurai.
In the truce talks with the BJP central leadership held last week, AIADMK sought a public apology from Annamalai for his remarks or him being replaced by a non-controversial leader. The BJP's demand was not accepted. Annamalai said that the national leadership will respond to the AIADMK decision, and he will speak about it later.
The resolution came after a unanimous resolution was passed in a meeting, in which all the party's MPs, Assembly members and district chiefs participated, at a meeting in the party headquarters in Chennai.
The chairperson of AIADMK, D Jayakumar, had announced last week that the party is breaking its ties with the BJP and a decision on ties during the Lok Sabha polls will be decided by the party leadership.
Annamalai claimed that Annadurai had mocked Hinduism during an event in Madurai in 1956. Due to this statement, Annadurai had to go to hiding in Madurai, only being able to resume his travels after issuing an apology. In June, Annamalai referred to a question regarding the period from 1991 to 1996 as one of the worst in terms of corruption. He said that several administrations in Tamil Nadu were corrupt, leading to the conviction of former chief ministers in courts of law, making it one of the most corrupt states in India. During this period, Jayalalithaa was in power and the comments forced the AIADMK to pass a resolution against the state BJP chief.
In 1982, AIADMK was formed by M G Ramachandran and the name was added to the party to pay tribute to Annadurai.