With the appointment of L Murugan as the State BJP president and the recent turnout of several events, political observers in Tamil Nadu predicts that the saffron party was eyeing the Dalit vote bank of VCK, especially in the state's northern districts. BJP state secretary K Srinivasan told a news agency, “Except BJP no other party had appointed a person from Arunthathiyar community as its state president. BJP is functioning with the principles of social harmony and social justice and due to its activities, a large number of Dalits were attracted towards the party. A proof of this will be available in 2021 polls”.
Similar to other states, BJP in Tamil Nadu had been in alliance with Puthiya Tamilagam, which primarily represents the Dalits in southern districts still the party could not garner the support of Dalits in northern Tamil Nadu, which is evident from the recent election results. BJP’s vote share has increased from 2.86 per cent in 2016 assembly elections to 3.7 per cent in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party could not garner any seat nor could not get the vote share of Dalits in Tamil Nadu. Along the same line, VCK too had gained votes from 0.8 percentage in 2016 state assembly election to 1.51 percentage in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Post appointment by BJP, now the primary Opposition DMK party has appointed former DMK MLA V P Duraisamy, a Dalit leader as a vice president of the state unit to strengthen the party’ aspirations in Tamil Nadu. Punitha Pandian, Political Commentator and the editor of a Daily has said, “Just because Murugan has been appointed as the state president it does not mean that BJP will be able to grab the vote share of VCK or will get Dalit votes in Tamil Nadu. BJP is a party that does not believe in social justice as the recent incident of reservation for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) is the classic example".
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