EPS says AIADMK-NDA coalition will win 210 seats

THe AIADMK and the BJP, which contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections separately but feature add up unitedly to struggle the 2026 assemblage elections will get a combined vote share of 41.33% and win 210 of the 234 seats, declared AIADMK general secretary Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) on Wednesday.EPS was speaking at AIADMK’s general council and executive committee meeting in Vanagaram outside of Chennai.At the meeting, the party’s highest decision making bodies passed 16 resolutions which included adopting the alliance with the BJP to fight the 2026 assembly elections, empowering party general secretary EPS to bring in like-minded allies into the coalition to fight the DMK. Most of the resolutions focussed on condemning the ruling DMK over various issues. However, the party in the resolutions also urged the Union government to give approval for the metro rail projects in Coimbatore and Madurai district while fully supporting the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.“The AIADMK-led alliance will win 210 (out of 234 assembly) seats,” EPS said seeking the cooperation of the party cadre. “We will win again. The DMK is losing popularity and their days are numbered. They are criticising our alliance out of envy.”EPS is the chief ministerial candidate for the BJP-National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2026 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.Maintaining that the party was built and protected by the late chief ministers M G Ramachandran (founder) and J Jayalalithaa, he said, “Peace, prosperity and development was their motto and because of their welfare initiatives to the people of Tamil Nadu, today no one can touch the party.”He offered some data to back his declaration that the AIADMK will return to power, despite losing every election since the death of its leader in office J Jayalalithaa in December 2016.EPS added the vote share of the AIADMK coalition (23.05%) and NDA (18.28%) from 2024 LS polls to conclude that they are assured of a vote share of 41.33%. “If you calculate, that’s a minimum of 84 Assembly seats which are assured for us”.EPS accused chief minister and DMK president MK Stalin of rushing to complete his poll promises which he hadn’t made in the last four and a half years since they formed the government in 2021. “Why should you give the free laptops now? Colleges had reopened five months ago. As elections are nearing, and you’ve lost popularity your fear is evident,” EPS said, addressing Stalin and challenged that DMK cannot find faults with the ten-year AIADMK regime that ended in 2021.