National leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party are starting their campaign in Tamil Nadu Saturday onwards forging alliance with eight fringe parties, led with not so well-known candidates, for the upcoming assembly polls.

There are murmurs among party members over these fringe parties having no following and how the BJP would attract voters.

BJP senior leader and party’s national executive member L Ganesan agrees to the fact that the alliance partners selected by the leadership may not be that strong. But he says, “We are motivating ourselves on the Modi factor. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the NDA secured 19.6 percent vote as people voted in favour of Modi. This time NDA has fielded on 230 seats of which BJP is contesting on 156.” Alliance is not going to matter much, he adds.

K Sarvothaman, BJP state secretary says, “During the last Lok Sabha elections we got the support from DMDK’s Vijayakanth and PMK’s Ramadoss. Since this time they are not supporting us we are accommodating fringe parties.” Sarvothaman was quick to add the names of the alliance partners of the BJP which include Indian Jananayaka Katchi (IJK) that has been allotted 45 seats, India Makkal Kalvi Munnetra Kazhagam which has been allotted 24 seats, All India Telugu Sammelanam, All India Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, Federation of All Arundhathiyar Makkal welfare Association, Vettuva Gounder Ilaignar Nala Sangam, South India Forward Block and Tamil Nadu Boyar Welfare Association.

Sarvothaman, however, says that these outfits have their own strengths in few pockets of southern and northern part of the state.