BJP unable to leave mark as DMK-led alliance sweeps TN
The DMK’s grand alliance, which includes the Congress party and Left parties, is part of the broader INDIA bloc that has remained intact since the 2019 national polls.
The alliance led by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu was set for a clean sweep on Tuesday, with the ruling party and its partners leading in all 39 parliamentary seats in the state and securing victory in the lone seat in the neighbouring union territory of Puducherry, according to Election Commission of India data.
The DMK’s grand alliance, which includes the Congress party and Left parties, is part of the broader INDIA bloc that has remained intact since the 2019 national polls, when the coalition lost only one seat to the then-allies All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
From the early rounds of counting on Tuesday, the INDIA coalition dominated leads in more than 30 seats. By 5 p.m., they were ahead in all 39 constituencies.
Only two contests remained close. In Dharmapuri, where the BJP’s ally Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) had established an early lead, DMK’s A Mani eventually overtook PMK’s Soumiya Anbumani, the wife of PMK chief and former Union health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.
In Virudhunagar, the AIADMK-allied Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) led for four rounds before incumbent Congress MP Manickam Tagore reversed the trend. Tagore was leading DMDK’s V Vijayaprabhakaran, son of the late DMDK founder and actor Vijaykanth.
The resounding vote in favour of the three-year-old DMK government led by chief minister MK Stalin comes as most incumbent state governments across India trailed in the polls.
The BJP, which has aimed to make inroads in the southern state where the two Dravidian parties have ruled successively since 1967, appears to have eaten into the votes of its former ally AIADMK. Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai, despite a strident campaign to gain a foothold in a state where the party won just 3.66% of the vote in 2019, finished runner-up in Coimbatore, pushing the AIADMK candidate to third place.
The BJP, however, increased its vote share to more than 11%, while also relegating the AIADMK to third place in key constituencies like Chennai South, Chennai Central, Kanyakumari, and Vellore [CHECK]. In Tirunelveli, where Tamil nationalist S Seeman’s Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK) finished third, the AIADMK was pushed to fourth.
However, the AIADMK’s vote share remained double that of the BJP, at 20.5% compared to 11.03%. The INDIA bloc secured 42% of the vote, with the DMK alone receiving about 27%.
Political analyst Maalan Narayanan said the results raise the question of who is now the second-largest party in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK or the BJP. “BJP has made inroads by eating into AIADMK’s voter base,” Narayanan said. “The DMK’s intact alliance and freebies have worked in their favour. In a triangular contest, the anti-DMK votes got split between the AIADMK and BJP, which came to the advantage of the DMK.”
The DMK coalition, which aimed for a 40-seat sweep including Puducherry, was poised to achieve the feat for the first time since 2004 under Stalin’s father, M Karunanidhi. In Puducherry, incumbent Congress MP V Vaithilingam was leading BJP’s home minister A Namassivayam by a margin of 100,000 votes.
The DMK itself is leading in 22 seats, followed by the Congress with nine, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Communist parties with two each, and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) with one apiece.
