Piyush Goyal meets Palaniswami in Chennai as BJP begins seat-sharing talks with AIADMK for 2026 polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday (December 23, 2025) began seat-sharing negotiations with the AIADMK, which is heading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, for the 2026 Assembly elections. BJP Tamil Nadu election in-charge and Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal met AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami in Chennai.

This was Mr. Goyal’s first visit to Tamil Nadu after being appointed by the BJP high command as the party’s election in-charge for the State to oversee organisational activities for the 2026 Assembly elections.

Mr. Goyal, along with Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, the party’s election co-in-charge for the State, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan, BJP State president Nainar Nagenthran, the party’s national in-charge Arvind Menon, and co-in-charge P. Sudhakar Reddy, met a delegation of AIADMK leaders that included Mr. Palaniswami and former Ministers K.P. Munusamy, S.P. Velumani, Dindigul C. Sreenivasan, and P. Thangamani.

Both sides met at a star hotel in Chennai for lunch. Earlier, Mr. Goyal and other leaders arrived at Kamalalayam, the headquarters of the BJP State unit in Chennai, and held a meeting for nearly an hour and a half. Former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and BJP Mahila Morcha national president Vanathi Srinivasan also participated in the meeting.