Senior AIADMK leader and former Tamil Nadu minister C Ve Shanmugam has blamed BJP for his party’s defeat in the state Assembly polls.

Shanmugam said that the poll pact with the saffron party led to AIADMK’s defeat in the recently concluded Assembly polls in the state. The AIADMK leader further said that his party lost minority votes because of its alliance with the BJP.

“A major reason for AIADMK’s defeat was its alliance with BJP in the state election. We even lost minority vote bank because of the same,” Shanmugam said on Tuesday while addressing the party cadre at Vanur in Villupuram district.

In the recently-held Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK faced defeat at the hands of arch-rival DMK after being in power for a decade. The DMK, which was kept away from power and remained in opposition for 10 long years, won a convincing victory bagging 133 of the total 234 seats. The AIADMK and BJP won 66 and four seats respectively.

The BJP and the AIADMK had come together for the April Assembly elections. The two parties had also fought the Lok Sabha polls together in 2019.

Hitting back at the AIADMK leader, BJP leaders of the Tamil Nadu unit said a seasoned politician should not indulge in “blame game and mud slugging” and should look at the factors that led to the defeat of the alliance.

Actor and BJP leader Khushbu Sundar also criticised the AIADMK leader over his remarks and wrote on Twitter: “Actually it’s the other way around.”