Tamil Nadu will be the first major state to complete polling, with all its 39 Lok Sabha seats voting in the first phase on April 19. In recent weeks, the BJP has led a considerable campaign effort in the state, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting multiple times since the election schedule was announced. Even if the fight remains centred on the DMK and AIADMK, the BJP will look to gain in terms of vote share and pick up some seats.
The INDIA bloc in Tamil Nadu is led by the DMK and includes the Congress, Left parties, IUML, Dalit-based VCK, actor-politician Kamal Haasan‘s MNM, former DMK leader Vaiko’s MDMK, and the Gounder community-based KMDK.
Tamil Nadu is among the few states where the INDIA bloc’s seat-sharing talks have been largely amicable, with the parties agreeing to roughly the same split as 2019 – 9 seats for the Congress, 2 seats each to the VCK, CPI(M), and CPI, and a seat each to the MDMK, IUML and KMDK, leaving 21 for Chief Minister M K Stalin-led DMK.
Since ending its alliance with the BJP last October, owing to the increasing animosity between the parties and its differences with BJP state unit chief K Annamalai in particular, the AIADMK has looked elsewhere for support. Aside from the relatively prominent DMDK, which the BJP too was trying to woo, the AIADMK has put together an alliance of minor parties including the Puthiya Tamilagam (PT), and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). The AIADMK has kept 32 for itself, giving 5 to the DMDK, founded by the late matinee star Vijayakanthand 1 each to the PT and SDPI.
The BJP too has managed to cobble together a handful of regional parties, including Vanniyar caste leader S Ramadoss’s PMK, former AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran’s AMMK, former Congress leader G K Vasan’s Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) (TMC-M), Indhiya Jananayaga Katchi (IJK) and Puthiya Neethi Katchi. While the BJP is contesting in 23 seats, it gave the PMK 10 (keeping it away from the AIADMK), the TMC-M 3 and the AMMK 2, besides offering support to former CM O Panneerselvam as an Independent.
Past Lok Sabha and Assembly results
Despite the plethora of parties in Tamil Nadu and the complex composition of the three major alliances, the results of the last two Lok Sabha polls show that the DMK and AIADMK are the major forces in the state. In the past three Lok Sabha elections, Tamil Nadu has overwhelmingly favoured one party in the Lok Sabha polls.
The 2014 polls were a clean sweep for the AIADMK that won 37 seats. The BJP and PMK, neither aligned with the AIADMK at the time, won a seat each. It was a comprehensive win for the AIADMK in terms of vote share too – the party secured 44.28% vote share compared to just 23.57% for the DMK. Notably, the BJP was the next largest party in terms of vote share, at 5.48%. The Congress managed 4.31% of the votes.
But in 2019, the state flipped over to the alliance led by the DMK. The M K Stalin-led party won 24 seats with its allies taking 14 seats. The AIADMK won just 1 seat with a vote share of 19.15%, while the DMK got 33.12% of the votes. The Congress, its most prominent ally, won 8 seats and got 12.46% of the votes. The BJP, however, drew a bank in terms of seats and had a 3.58% vote share.
Historically, after a brief spell of Congress dominance in the first three Lok Sabha polls, the DMK and AIADMK have remained the dominant parties at the Parliamentary level since 1967, barring the 1996 polls when the TMC(M) swept all the seats.
In Assembly polls, though regional parties play a larger role in terms of vote share, the DMK and AIADMK still win the biggest chunk of seats in the 234-member House. In 2021, the AIADMK fell from 135 seats and 40.77% vote share in 2016 to 66 seats and 33.29% vote share. The DMK came to power with 133 seats and 37.7% vote share, up from 88 seats and 31.64% in 2016. The Congress, too, recorded a strong performance with 18 seats from just 4.27% vote share. The Left and the VCK won 4 seats each. The BJP managed to win 4 seats, its highest tally in the state, despite its vote share dropping marginally to 2.62%, while the PMK won 5 seats from a 3.8% vote share. Kamal Haasan’s MNM also made its poll debut, contesting independently but managing just 2.62% vote share and no seats.
Like the Lok Sabha polls, the Assembly elections too have oscillated between the DMK and AIADMK – the parties have formed the state government 7 times each after three consecutive Congress governments post-Independence.
Alliance impact
Looking at the past poll results through the lens of current alliances shows the DMK-led INDIA bloc has the edge. In 2019, the national Opposition grouping had secured a combined 56.17% of the vote share compared to the AIADMK alliance’s 21.35% and the BJP alliance’s 9.38%. In 2014, when the AIADMK had nearly swept the state on its own, its alliance’s combined vote share was 50.15%, compared to 34.49% for the DMK group and 9.92% for the BJP and its partners. The BJP’s hand has been weakened due to the break-up of its alliance with the AIADMK, with its regional allies not having garnered enough votes either in the Lok Sabha or Assembly polls recently.
While the combined alliance vote shares don’t change the results of the 2019 polls – the INDIA bloc comes out ahead in 37 seats and the AIADMK alliance in just 1 – the result of the BJP’s aggressive Tamil Nadu push remains to be seen.
