On July 31, after a 10-day break due to a therapeutic procedure, as chief minister M.K. Stalin got back to his routine work, he had high profile visitors who came enquiring about his health at his Chitranjan Road residence in Chennai. Former chief minister O. Panneerselvam, DMDK general secretary Premalatha Vijayakanth came calling on Stalin to enquire about his health.
Though these were only formal meetings, it had strong political messages. With only nine months to go for the assembly elections in 2026, the major political parties in the state have already begun working on their electoral strategies. With the DMK launching a membership drive called ‘Ooraniyil Tamil Nadu’ meaning Tamil Nadu as one team, the AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami has launched his election campaign with a tag line - Makkalai kaappom, Thamilagathai meetpom (save people and retrieve Tamil Nadu). Actor Vijay has launched a new mobile app called MyTVK to enrol more members into his fledgling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). He will soon launch his state-wide tour called ‘Vettri Peraniyil Tamil Nadu’ meaning Tamil Nadu in victory rally. BJP state chief Nainar Nagendran, AIADMK rebel leader O. Panneerselvam, DMDK leader Premalatha Vijayakanth are also set to launch their state-wide tour soon.
The political landscape in Tamil Nadu has been changing significantly in the past five years, with the DMK reaching out to the people with welfare schemes with Stalin’s popularity among the people. While the DMK’s eight-year-old rainbow alliance remains intact, the AIADMK front has renewed its alliance with the BJP and is waiting for other parties to form a mega alliance. Vijay’s fledgling TVK, though not for alliances now, seems to be a formidable force cutting into the youth and the first-time voters in the state.
Tamil Nadu’s bipolar politics and the emerging challenges
From 1977, the first election when M.G. Ramachandran won to 2021, the DMK and the AIADMK have managed to win 75 to 80 per cent of the total votes in Tamil Nadu in every assembly general election. Though the two Dravidian majors saw various splits, had alliances with national parties or the fringe groups in the state, state’s politics had always remained bipolar. One more than the opponent was the kind of the setup. Any other party which contested as an opponent or an alternative had won only the residual 15 per cent vote share. However, in 2024, this Dravidian forte, which was 80 per cent, became 70 per cent. Though the DMK played its role and got 46 per cent along with its alliance, the AIADMK got only 24 per cent votes, much less than the votes it won under Jayalalithaa. Apart from AIADMK, the remaining votes were shared by the NDA alliance which won 19 per cent votes and Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) won close to 9 per cent.
This raised the prospect of a tripolar contest, with the BJP-led alliance seeking to occupy the anti-DMK space more assertively, than the AIADMK. In the upcoming 2026 election, this change will necessitate major adjustments to electoral strategy and ideological framing. It also forces a reconsideration of whether Tamil Nadu will remain an outlier in resisting the national trend of party centralisation or whether the logic of nationalisation. Actor Vijay’s political entry complicates this scenario further. While his impact remains speculative for now, his potential to galvanise youth, urban voters, and those alienated from traditional party structures could accelerate the fragmentation of the opposition space. As his political messaging manages to combine regional pride with developmental pragmatism, along with anti-corruption and anti-dynasty plank Vijay can become a catalytic force, as AIADMK continues to falter.
“The bipolar politics in TN seems unsettled with the entry of BJP and its emergence at the cost of AIADMK’s weakness. The AIADMK voter is not a DMK voter naturally. This clear distinction has been built over decades. In Bihar, like how BJP grew with JD(U), won't happen quickly in TN, because here the two Dravidian parties have similar ideological vocabulary. Because the AIADMK is falling slowly, Vijay thinks that the discomforted voter will come to him. Vijay’s calculation is very simple - because DMK or BJP is not the natural choice. He thinks he can win the AIADMK votes. He is trying to fill the void created by EPS who has vacated the AIADMK’s ideological stance,” Dr Vignesh Rajahmani, Post doctoral Research Fellow of Indian and Indonesian Politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies - Leiden.
AIADMK’s prospects
Though the AIADMK is not strong as it was under Jayalalithaa, in the past three months, its leader Edappadi K. Palaniswami, known as EPS among his followers, did two interesting things when he forged an alliance with the BJP. He ensured that former IPS officer K. Annamalai vacated the BJP state president post and Nainar Nagendran, a former AIADMKian became the BJP chief. By the removal of Annamalai, EPS has ensured that there is no challenge for him in West Tamil Nadu from his own Gounder community. With Nainar at the helm of affairs, EPS calculates that he can win the votes AIADMK lost in the south because of the exit of OPS, Dhinakaran and the Sasikala faction. The BJP, EPS feels, will play a supportive role with leaders like Tamilisai Soundararajan, Nainar Nagendran who have their community strength attached to their political popularity. Though Palaniswami has managed an alliance with the BJP to solve the electoral clarity which was lacking in 2024, he is losing ideologically and has also compromised on his political messaging to the party cadres. “The BJP usually gets in as a smaller partner. Be it in Bihar or Maharashtra, they did that. And then they emerged as the leading partner in the alliance. Hope our leader realises this,” says a senior AIADMK leader.
O. Panneerselvam’s political shift
He was the man who rolled out the red carpet for the BJP and the RSS ideologues in Tamil Nadu soon after the death of Jayalalithaa. In 2017, when he rebelled against Jayalalithaa’s close aide V.K. Sasikala, OPS as he is popularly known among his supporters was accorded as a hero. Nevertheless within six months, he merged his faction with the AIADMK led by his colleague Edappadi K. Palaniswami. He had no other option but to second fiddle the then chief minister EPS. Three elections passed since then - 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls and 2021 assembly polls. But EPS did not accord any importance to OPS. Subsequently OPS, who was isolated completely from the party found solace under the BJP, once again in 2024, months ahead of the election. This time, the Delhi high command asked him to contest as an independent candidate from the NDA fold from the Ramanathapuram constituency. OPS who had always taken pride in being in the AIADMK, its two-leaves symbol and known to be a staunch Jayalalithaa loyalist had to contest in jackfruit symbol against the AIADMK and DMK, only to make it a three cornered contest. Though OPS won more than three lakh votes and pushed the AIADMK to the fourth place to make it lose its deposit, he seems to have lost his space even in the BJP now.
On July 29, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was at Gangaikonda Cholapuram to participate in the Thiruvathirai Naval festival of celebrated king Rajendra Chola, OPS was waiting for an appointment to meet and receive Modi at the Tiruchirapalli airport. While there was no reply from the PMO, OPS dialled Tamil Nadu BJP chief Nainar Nagendran at least six times, sent several text messages. “Nagendran said that he would have helped me meet with the PM, if I had contacted him. I tried reaching him. But he did not answer my phone calls. Did not reply to my text messages rather,” OPS said.
And finally when he understood that the BJP had ditched him, he decided to enquire on Stalin’s health. “This meeting was not for aligning with the DMK. It was only a courtesy call to enquire about the CM's health. There is no permanent friend or friend in politics,” OPS told THE WEEK. When asked for more details one of his family members, on conditions of anonymity revealed that the PM snub was because of Palaniswami.
While OPS has still not joined the DMK or not formally announced ties with the DMK alliance, the DMK under Stalin is playing a calculated political game to isolate the AIADMK-BJP alliance in Tamil Nadu. Sources say that OPS in the next few months will expose AIADMK leader Palaniswami’s political fallouts, how his government was marred with corruption and why he clinched a deal with the BJP now. Though OPS doesn’t command a huge cadre base in the AIADMK, his exit will cost the NDA.
DMDK’s new-found love for Stalin
In 2016, a few months before the assembly election, DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi while inviting late Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) into the alliance said, “the fruit will slip and fall into the milk.” But Vijayakanth’s party forged a third front called the People’s Welfare Front with VCK and MDMK in the alliance and ate into DMK’s vote bank in most of the assembly constituencies. In the next 2019 elections, the party contested from the NDA fold and contested with T.T.V. Dhinakaran’s AMMK in 2021 elections. Again in 2024, after the demise of Vijayakanth, the party led by his wife Premalatha, aligned with the AIADMK.
The alliance equation between the AIADMK and the DMDK which has close to four per cent votes across the state seems to have fallen apart. Premalatha openly criticised the AIADMK for not keeping up its promise of a Rajya Sabha ticket to the DMDK. “We will decide on our future course after our party’s state conference at Cuddalore on January 9, 2026,” she told The Week. Though the DMDK walked out of the NDA soon after the 2019 elections, Modi wrote a long obituary note for Vijayakanth’s demise.
But this time around, Premalatha, the present general secretary of the DMDK, feels that the party had been ditched by both the AIADMK and BJP. Party insiders say that this was because of AIADMK leader Palaniswami’s decision - not to honour the commitment given to the DMDK. “He feels being with BJP itself is enough to win the elections,” a senior leader from the DMDK told THE WEEK.
Like OPS, on July 31 Premalatha too called on Stalin, enquiring about his health. “I only came to enquire about his health. We did not talk about politics,” she said. Premalatha has however set out on a state-wide tour to appease the voters. OPS’s and Premalatha’s meeting with Stalin has turned the political tables in the state, suggesting that the DMK leadership, unlike his father, is more inclusive and is like an expansionist. “He is like an election fighting machine. In 2021 he pushed the DMK into the south - where it was relatively weak and increased the votes and seats. In the West he increased the votes but not the seats. This is because the Gounder community was with AIADMK,” says Dr. Vignesh Rajahmani. Even if OPS and Premalatha do not join the DMK alliance, they will play the role of a spoiler for the AIADMK in the south, where it is already weak.
The AIADMK which used to have a strong vote base in South Tamil Nadu, had lost it after Jayalalithaa. In the 2021 elections, Dhinakaran won close to 25 lakh votes across the state, spoiling the prospects of the AIADMK. Even now, if OPS and Dhinakaran get together, their alliance can make an impact in 88 constituencies in the south, spoiling the Thevar community votes. The Thevars or the Mukkulathors (comprising three sub castes - Kallar, Maravar and Agamudaiyar) who form close to seven percent of the total voters in the districts down Madurai to Tirunelveli. A politically vibrant community has always been with the AIADMK during MGR and Jayalalithaa’s leadership. There are close to 30 constituencies in Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Virudhunagar and Theni districts which have majority Maravar votes, OPS’s community. If not in all the 88 constituencies, he can tilt the Thevar votes in these 30 constituencies. In 2024, out of the 18 per cent votes scored by the BJP alliance, TTV Dhinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam and OPS’s AIADMK Cadres’ Rights Retrieval Committee contributed to at least four percent votes in Theni, Madurai and Ramanathapuram.
Vijay factor
In at least 75 constituencies in West Tamil Nadu and parts of South, the vote share difference between the AIADMK and the DMK was less than 10,000 in 2021 assembly general elections. This was because of Seeman and his NTK which played the disruptor role. In 2021, Seeman campaigned against both the dravidian parties and the BJP and claimed the alternate votes which were once with Vijayakanth’s DMDK. Seeman, though has not changed his stance and speaks in the same tone as in 2021, his recent meetings with chief minister Stalin and an earlier meeting with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has toned down his opposition against the DMK and the BJP. This space vacated by Seeman, is likely to shift towards actor Vijay, who will naturally cut into the votes of the Dravidian parties and make the contest between the two big alliances difficult.
Although the entry of Vijay did not directly impact the 2024 general elections, his political foray introduces a variable that may reshape the contours of electoral competition in the near future. With a carefully curated public image, zero engagement with the media and a mass following, Vijay has the potential to draw support from disenchanted urban voters, younger demographics, and segments of the electorate seeking a break from entrenched party structures. His emergence is likely to affect the DMK in terms of the magnitude of its victory more than the AIADMK or BJP, if he positions himself as a pro-Tamil, non-communal alternative with grassroots appeal. The significance of his entry will become clearer in the run-up to the 2026 state assembly elections. Vijay’s entry will also serve a significant blow to the NTK’s vote-share.
“It was bipolar only for the reason that there was no credible alternative. He has charisma and ideology. We speak for the entire Tamil Nadu and not just a section of the voters. There was general apathy or disenchantment from the youth till Vijay launched his party. The change is very visible with the entry of Vijay.
Because people voted for AIADMK or DMK earlier it doesn’t mean that they will vote for the two parties forever. This is because Vijay is not just an actor. His charisma and ideological rooting is a deadly combination. He is speaking about social justice - that shifted the entire dynamics. The DMK is literally shaken that their stronghold is getting eroded because there is a charismatic leader who speaks social justice much stronger than it does. People are desperately trying for a change. The two dravidian parties have contributed to the state. We are not ridiculing that. But the present set of leaders who are at the helm of affairs in the Dravidian parties are not doing justice to their own dravidian ideologues,” K.G. Arunraj, general secretary, policy and propaganda of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam told The Week. Incidentally Vijay will soon host his second state-wide conference at Madurai on August 27 and then set out on a state-wide tour to meet the people. His party has relaunched its membership drive app called MyTVK mobile app with a tagline called ‘Vettri Peraniyil Tamil Nadu’ meaning, Tamil Nadu in a victorious rally. He aims to enrol at least two crore voters as members of his party.
However Vijay’s party is yet to have its complete infrastructure like the AIADMK and the DMK which are stronger in the grass roots. In the meanwhile, his party insiders say that OPS had already sent feelers to Vijay for alliance talks. Vijay has not had a high profile face in the party since he launched it in 2024. If OPS joins with him in alliance, Vijay’s camp feels it can be an addition. If OPS walks in then it is more likely T.T.V. Dhinakaran might also go with Vijay.
While the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu reaffirmed the vitality of the Dravidian-Tamil tradition, the run up to the 2026 election could alter the existing equations in the state. The AIADMK’s continued decline, the BJP’s strategic recalibration and the widening of the anti-DMK space signal a transition in the making. With the young voters emerging more significant this election the political parties might have to offer more than legacy and charisma to appease the people.