NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be holding BJP organisational meetings in Tamil Nadu on Sunday as the party works to sharpen its political outreach ahead of the assembly elections in the southern state in less than a year.

Party sources said Shah will chair a meeting of the core committee, which includes key leaders of the state organisation, and then speak to office-bearers from mandal, districts and the state.

He will offer prayers at the famous Meenakshi Temple in Madurai before his political programmes, they added.

The BJP has joined hands with the main opposition AIADMK to challenge the ruling DMK-led alliance in the state.

The AIADMK is the senior partner in the alliance which is likely to include some smaller parties as well amid the DMK's sharp campaign to paint the BJP as a party working against the state's interests, including by allegedly trying to impose Hindi.

The DMK has also been raising the issue of alleged political damage to southern states in a future delimitation exercise due to their success in curbing the population growth compared to their northern counterparts.

The BJP has insisted that the DMK has been raising these issues as a diversions tactic to shift focus from the alleged corruption and misgovernance under the rule of Chief Minister MK Stalin.

Shah has in the past asserted that any delimitation exercise will protect the interests of southern states.