INDIA Bloc Was Never Meant To Work: AIADMK As Trinamool, AAP Snub Congress

With INDIA bloc constituents Trinamool Congress and the AAP announcing they would not align with Congress in Bengal and Punjab respectively for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu said the multi-party alliance was never meant to work due to the members' different ideologies.

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami said it has to be seen "who all exits" the alliance over time.

Besides the Congress, the TMC, the AAP, and the CPI (M)-led front, MK Stalin's DMK from Tamil Nadu is also a part of the 28-party Opposition grouping.

TMC chief and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Punjab counterpart - AAP's Bhagwant Mann - announced today their parties will not join hands with the Congress in their respective states for the parliamentary polls.

"Parties with different ideologies and opinions formed the INDIA bloc. Each party has a different policy and opinion. It's difficult to work together with that," he said.

"It was expected and well-known that it would not fructify. But they still tried to form that alliance... There is still time (for elections). Let us wait and see who all exits," Tamil Nadu's Leader of Opposition said.

Asked whether the consecration of the Ram temple will echo in the polls, he said, "We are constructing many shrines" in Salem and his constituency - Edappadi.

"If people start supporting someone for constructing temples, everybody will be constructing temples," the former Chief Minister said. People of respective faiths build their places of worship, he added.

Constructing temples alone will not get votes and if that is the case, "AIADMK will always win in Edappady unopposed", he quipped, adding that a lot of temples have been constructed in his constituency.

A lot has been done for temples, churches, and mosques during the AIADMK's regime as the party treats all faiths as equal, he said.

The AIADMK snapped ties with the BJP in September last year.