The much talked about friendship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Jayalalithaa has not helped.
After the 2014 election, the BJP had hoped to win Tamil Nadu. But the party finds itself going it alone in the assembly elections -- unable to find a single ally despite wooing almost every significant party in the state.
The much talked about friendship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Jayalalithaa has not helped. Ms Jayalalithaa has given the BJP a wide berth, especially after its electoral defeats in Bihar and Delhi.
Captain Vijayakanth of the DMDK preferred an alliance with the Left parties and smaller Dravidian partners, in which he would be declared chief ministerial candidate. Rejections have also come in from PMK's Ramadoss and AISMK's Sarath Kumar. Even ally Y Gopalakrishnan, popularly known as Vaiko, of the MDMK, has parted company with the NDA.
It is the cadres of other parties, who are responsible for this, said state BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajajn. "All the parties we tried have their own chief ministerial aspirations and they want to lead the Front. We leaders can compromise but cadre won't," he said.
The BJP had never been a strong player in Tamil Nadu, where power has always alternated between two parties. Even at the height of the Modi wave in 2014, it got just one Lok Sabha seat out of the state's 39 -- part of the reason being that Tamil Nadu has had a history of anti-Hindi sentiment and BJP is seen as a Hindi belt party.
But given the increase in voteshare in the 2014 polls - 5.6% from the earlier 2.6% -- following alliances with the MDMK and a few smaller parties, the BJP had voiced ambitious plans of emerging as an alternative to AIADMK and the DMK.
In December 2014, BJP chief Amit Shah drew up an ambitious plan to increase the party's support base, enlisting the help of Union Ministers Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Piyush Goyal and Prakash Javadekar.
But barring its presence in the social media and some urban pockets, it has little presence at the grass-root level, and hence, little to offer a prospective partner.
The BJP had been desperate to get someone like a Rajini Kanth, who was even honoured recently with a Padma Vibhushan award. But that did not change his mind about staying away from political parties.