This year’s Tamil Nadu Assembly elections are delicate and modest compared to previous elections in recent decades. This does not mean that election drama and campaign strategies are any less interesting or unexciting. This is a real-life battle between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through its agents. Although the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is the leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, the BJP is the decisive force in defining the components of this alliance by building bridges and strengthening the network of allies from behind such as the reconciliation between TTV Dhinakaran and Edappadi K Palaniswami with Sasikala Natarajan which has been kept in check through constant surveillance and notices.
The BJP has begun to notice that actor Vijay is not only able to attract young voters and women, but also presents himself as an option for Christian minority voters in the future. This is the most interesting and compelling mindset in the BJP’s strategy with the short-term benefits of popular influence and the long-term plan to cut into the DMK’s minority vote bank. At the same time, the BJP is also aware of the mutual inclination between the Congress and Vijay’s TVK which is unlikely to turn into an electoral alliance in the near future. There is an influential view gaining ground at the national and state levels towards exploring the Congress-TVK ties in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry as the top leadership of both the Congress and DMK comes out. In this case, current developments or potential shifts in the future are unlikely to yield positive results for the BJP.
Adopting a Vijay ticket may have been in the mind of BJP strategists for over a year now with the push for an Andhra Pradesh model in line with Pawan Kalyan’s Janasena Party and Chandra Babu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party coalition, which did not materialize due to Palaniswami’s unwillingness to concede a point as he saw a long-term threat and challenge from both actor Vijay and the BJP coexisting under the Sword of Damocles. Vijay was equally pretending to sway. He is focusing on intensifying his resistance against the DMK while downplaying the importance of TVK’s opposition to the BJP in state politics.
The BJP helped revive the decadent influence of cinema in Tamil Nadu politics. This is the real irony of the BJP’s attempts to end the rule of Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, especially its deep hatred towards the DMK. The joining of O Pannerselvam (OPS) to the DMK and the continued challenge to Palaniswami are two sides of the same coin that expose the failure and limitations of the BJP’s divide and rule strategy in Tamil Nadu politics. There are also substantive issues of center-state relations regarding language and education policy, fiscal decentralization and challenges of demarcation with massive narrative control in favor of the DMK and lack of trust against the BJP.
All these factors contribute to the making of the DMK’s campaign strategy and the prevailing political narrative in state politics that the 2026 Assembly elections will be between Tamil Nadu and New Delhi. In other words, center-state issues will continue to dominate the DMK’s election campaign strategy and inadvertently maintain the DMK’s narrative of Tamil Nadu versus New Delhi. The DMK appears confident and organized in the face of the Assembly elections beyond the apparent polarization of opposition votes between the AIADMK-led NDA, TVK actor Vijay and Naam Thamizhar Katchi (NTK) of Seeman.
It is important to remember the organizational depth and cadre outreach of the DMK in a crucial political contest compared to other political parties including the AIADMK given its current conditions as a divided house with lack of trust prevailing between the cadres of the AIADMK and the BJP. TVK’s ability to manage booths is untested and almost non-existent given the management of party election offices spread across the state. Hence the BJP faces another election in Tamil Nadu with the possibility of not only collapsing its own conspiracy but also working against its own interests to survive and emerge stronger in a state that suspects everything it believes and stands for as rigged.
(Professor 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 – Center for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Kurumppalayam Village, Vellore District, Tamil Nadu.)
