There is a strange rallying theme among political parties ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu has rarely seen formal coalition governments unlike states like Kerala and Bihar. Politics was largely controlled by single-party majority governments, especially by the Dravidian parties of either the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) or the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK). The two-party system has been dominant in Tamil Nadu politics since 1967. Under this successful two-party system, there is an effective pre-election coalition strategy and understanding that makes post-election alliances and the prospects of forming a coalition government remote. The nature of the DMK-Congress alliance and MGR’s historical formula are possible signs of this reality.
There are some shifts taking place on the ground after the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its role in national politics, especially in the past decade. The BJP has also emphasized its desire to emerge as an alternative to the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu besides challenging the DMK and dismantling the AIADMK from within as part of a larger strategy. This situation is different from the old DMK-Congress alliance and the MGR formula.
Vijay, his new emerging political party Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) and the shifting pre-election formations point to a new phenomenon with old realities beyond any simple calculations of pre-election alliance systems.
There is an application of the common enemy strategy to draw an alliance with broad pre-election strategies and long-term goals and objectives in state politics.
What’s new in the DMK-AIADMK rivalry in Tamil Nadu politics? There are some strong indicators of the changing political environment.
The emergence of factional politics and the weakening of the structure and mobilization of the AIADMK after Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016 was accompanied by the BJP’s role in presenting itself as an alternative to the Dravidian parties along with its coercive influence and control over the AIADMK and its factional politics by political and institutional means.
TVK’s portrayal of actor Vijay as a political rival to the DMK and an ideological resistor to the BJP keeps TVK in line with the anti-DMK party mobilization strategy along with TTV Dhinakaran and Sasikala as frontline leaders of this camp. The basic plan is to build and project a common enemy, mobilize a pre-election coalition and control the tide if the election results are favorable as a result of discontent or anti-incumbency factors that may help the BJP, AIADMK, AMMK and TVK. The idea of TVK remaining alone is unlikely to derail this assessment of the BJP’s common enemy strategy. In his meeting with party functionaries in Salem, actor-politician Vijay did not explicitly mention names or take direct attacks in his speech. He reiterated his party’s stance towards the DMK as the only political enemy besides dismissing possible negotiations with the AIADMK as being of little importance due to the current situation and the party’s weakness due to factionalism. Vijay is cleverly positioning himself against both the DMK and the AIADMK by emphasizing the DMK as the political enemy. This is consistent with the BJP’s script and strategy to keep the anti-DMK mobilization under check and control.
The DMK’s strategy of mobilizing anti-BJP votes in Tamil Nadu coincides with cultural and ideological issues rooted in BJP politics.
Other important parties like the Congress Party, Thule Thirumavalavan-led Viduthalai Chiruthaikal (VCK), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) form key components of this anti-BJP mobilization in Tamil Nadu politics along with the broader Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) framework consisting of Islamist identity-based parties. The DMK’s social justice ideology and its secular image as a defender of minority rights have traditionally attracted minority votes including from Muslim and Christian communities. There are more fundamental issues of mobilizing the DMK and consolidating the anti-BJP vote share in Tamil Nadu politics on the grounds of culture, language, federal rights and identity politics. The BJP has long focused on dismantling and breaking the Dravidian movement by dividing Tamil and Dravidian identities into separate and exploitative identities.
The DMK’s argument is that the BJP’s ambition to end the rule of Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu is not aimed simply at replacing or strengthening Tamil identity, but rather at imposing the cultural, religious and linguistic hegemony of the north-centric Hindutva ideology.
The weaving of the common enemy strategy by both the DMK and the BJP is deeply rooted in political, cultural, ideological and historical issues that transcend the rhetoric of electoral politics. There are also contradictions in the anti-DMK BJP alliance and the projection of the DMK as a common enemy is short-lived for other political parties due to the cultural, political and ideological issues associated with the merging and separating the anti-DMK alliance.
The AIADMK, AMMK and TVK may rally with the BJP on anti-DMK but they are equally aware of the ultimate goal(s) and strategies of the BJP, indicating the difference between a common enemy and a political enemy as evident within the BJP camp and among its indistinguishable allies.
Ramu Manivannan is a political scientist, researcher and activist in the fields of education, human rights and sustainable development. He is currently the Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Kurumppalayam Village, Vellore District, Tamil Nadu.
