Third force claim with 10% score: Stalin's jibe at BJP in Tamil Nadu

After urban local body polls in February, the BJP claimed that it has emerged as the third-largest party in Tamil Nadu after the DMK and the AIADMK.

With the BJP claiming to have emerged as the "third force" in its next frontier Tamil Nadu, the State's Chief Minister and DMK supremo M K Stalin has said it is like a boy scoring 90 points in an examination, the second student getting 50 and the third managing just a 10-point score.

He also said it was wrong to assume that the BJP won massively in the recently held assembly elections in five States as its tally declined in Uttar Pradesh and its 10 ministers, including one deputy chief minister, lost there, while several key leaders in Goa and the chief minister in Uttarakhand also had to suffer defeat.

"Taking into account the real field conditions of the five State election results, I'll say it is negative for the BJP," Mr. Stalin told PTI in an interview.

"In UP, they have got fewer seats than last time. The defeat of 10 ministers, including the deputy chief minister, is an expression of popular discontent. The BJP Chief Minister has been defeated in Uttarakhand and their key leaders lost in Goa too. The party has won only two seats in the Punjab assembly," said the DMK stalwart, who was on a three-day visit to the national capital.

Asked about the BJP's claim that it has emerged as the third force in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Stalin said, "A boy gets 90 marks in an examination. Another student gets a score of 50. Another one gets 10 points. Would you appreciate a 10-point scorer finishing third?"

After urban local body polls in February, the BJP claimed that it has emerged as the third-largest party in Tamil Nadu after the DMK and the AIADMK.

The local elections saw the ruling DMK relegating its arch-rival AIADMK to a distant second position, after trouncing it in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and then during the 2021 assembly polls. While the DMK won almost two-thirds seats, the BJP managed to make its inroads by winning over 300 seats, though it had fielded candidates for almost 5,600 seats of the total of more than 12,800.