Tamil Nadu Assembly election: CPI (M) leader Shanmugam casts doubt on AIADMK’s role in NDA seat-sharing

CPI(M) leader Shanmugam questions AIADMK's influence in NDA seat sharing, suggesting BJP may dominate allocations in Tamil Nadu elections.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary P. Shanmugam, on Wednesday (February 25, 2026), said it appeared that only the BJP would allocate seats to the AIADMK in the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, and not the other way round.

In a post on X, Mr. Shanmugam said AIADMK general secretary Edappadi. K. Palaniswami had been saying that his party is leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu. However, some parties in the NDA had indicated that they would hold seat-sharing talks only with the BJP, which the national party had not denied.

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“In such a scenario, it appears that only the BJP would allocate seats even to the AIADMK. It is time for the followers of Jayalalithaa, who once asked “Modi or Lady”, to think,” he said.

Mr. Shanmugam was referring to the slogan raised by the former Chief Minister during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when she asked the people, “Who is a better administrator? Is it Gujarat’s Modi [Narendra Modi was then Gujarat Chief Minister] or this Tamil Nadu lady?”