New Delhi: Amit Shah asked the people of Tamil Nadu to elect 25 MPs from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2024 as a vote of thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for installing the sengol in parliament.The Union home minister was speaking at a public meeting held by the BJP in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore city on Sunday, June 11.“A Narendra Modi government will form once again in 2024 with 300 seats. I have come here to request that you elect 25 MPs to parliament as thanks to Modi ji for [installing] the sengol,” he said in Hindi at the meeting.The sengol is a Chola dynasty-era sceptre that Modi installed in the new parliament building on May 28. The BJP has claimed that the sceptre was used to mark the transfer of power between Britain and India in 1947 but has been unable to verify its claim.Members of the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a party that is the BJP’s primary NDA partner in Tamil Nadu, expressed disagreement with Shah’s goals for the upcoming general election.“AIADMK will decide the parties which will be included in the party alliance for the 2024 parliamentary elections. Whether it is a parliament or assembly election, AIADMK will lead the alliance,” Deccan Chronicle quoted the party’s S. Semmalai as saying.DTNext also quoted a senior AIADMK leader as calling the BJP an ‘Achilles’ heel’ for the Tamil Nadu party thanks to its “hyper-nationalism” and “unitarian agenda”.The AIADMK won the NDA’s sole Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu in the 2019 general election.Also Read: Why Tamil Nadu Voted the Way It DidShah and Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai spoke about the BJP’s achievements in the state at the Vellore meeting, which was held to commemorate the BJP government’s 9-year anniversary in power at the federal level.Shah credited his government with starting two Vande Bharat trains in the state, introducing Tamil as a test-taking language for important exams and installing 82 lakh water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission, the Hindu reported.He also chided the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the ruling party in Tamil Nadu, as well as the Congress for being against the abrogation of Article 370, adding that “Modi joined Kashmir with India forever with a single stroke of the pen” by abrogating it.PTI reported that Shah proposed during a BJP functionary meeting in Chennai that a Tamil-speaking person be made prime minister in the near future.
