Tamil Nadu assembly polls: Which way will Dravidian politics swing in 2021?

When Tamil Nadu votes to elect a new government on April 6, elections will be happening in a huge void. Both M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, who shared the chief minister’s post between them for 32 out of the last 52 years, are no more. If we include the term of MG Ramachandran, whose political legacy Jayalalithaa inherited, the chief minister’s post was held between the three bigwigs for 42 of the last 52 years.

Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is now headed by his son MK Stalin. Stalin's son Udayanidhi is among the DMK candidates in these elections. The DMK was formed out of a split on the question of nepotism. Its founder CN Annadurai parted ways with his mentor EV Ramasami Periyar, who headed the Dravidar Kazhagam, which had come out of the Justice Party after Periyar decided to marry a young woman called Manimmai and named her as his political successor.

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which, when Jayalalithaa was alive, was a tightly controlled organisation and used to drive hard bargains even with parties that were much bigger in Indian politics. The party is now trying to set its own house in order. The AIADMK is also trying to maintain a separate identity of its own without undermining its alliance with India’s current dominant political hegemon, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Also read: In Tamil Nadu, the rise of MK Stalin’s son—Udhaynidhi Stalin

That Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s closest confidante, announced retirement from politics after coming out of prison and the AIADMK has included removal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in its manifesto underline these points.

Beyond these obvious changes, the 2021 elections will also be interesting as far as Tamil Nadu’s long-term political landscape is concerned. An HT analysis underlines at least three interesting trends which have been developing in Tamil Nadu's political fabric.

Elections have become close contests

The AIADMK created a history of sorts by retaining power for the second consecutive term in the 2016 assembly elections. Political power had alternated between the DMK and the AIADMK since 1984. “However, the 2016 elections were among the most closely contested elections in Tamil Nadu -- if one were to look at median victory margins -- since 1971, the earliest period for which data is available in the database maintained by the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) at Ashoka University. A median gives the middle value in a distribution.” A median gives the middle value in a distribution. A long-term look at victory margins also suggests that they have been declining in the post-1990 period.

See chart 1: Median victory margin in Tamil Nadu assembly elections

The two main Dravidian parties had unprecedented support in 2016. While Tamil Nadu’s politics has been dominated by Dravidian parties, first the DMK and then its offshoot AIADMK for decades, they never had more than two-thirds of the vote share between them until 2016. This changed in the 2016 elections when their combined vote share crossed 72 per cent. The Congress was the leading party in the erstwhile state of Madras. It was only in 1967 that the DMK won an election in the state which was renamed Tamil Nadu later.

Since then the Congress has undergone two phases of decline. The first major decline in its vote share came with the AIADMK contesting its first election in the state in 1977 when the Congress was pushed to the third spot. With members of the Congress and the DMK forming their own parties in the 1990s – such as the Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam – the Congress vote share suffered another big decline in vote share. The Left parties – Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M) - which did not see a decline in vote share with AIADMK’s entry in elections, have also seen their vote share reduce after the formation of many regional parties in the state. The BJP, so far, has been a marginal player in the state’s politics. "The fate of all parties except the DMK and AIADMK is largely contingent on their alliance or the lack of it with the major parties."

See chart 2: Long-term vote share in Tamil Nadu

Alliance is a tricky business of both the DMK and the AIADMK

The statistics discussed so far clearly underline the importance of alliance formation in Tamil Nadu. In a state, where median victory margins are around 6 per cent and the two major parties, even at their peak have never crossed more than three-fourth of the total vote share, alliances matter a lot. However, both the DMK and the AIADMK are extremely cautious and reluctant when it comes to seat-sharing. While the DMK has given just 25 assembly constituencies (ACs) to the Congress, its biggest alliance partner in these elections, the AIADMK has offered just 20 ACs to the BJP. A look at past election statistics explains the reluctance on part of the two major parties to offer more ACs to their alliance partners. Both the DMK and the AIADMK perform better against the alliance partners of their opponents than each other. In other words, the probability of a loss is higher for both the DMK and the AIADMK on ACs which are given to alliance partners.

See chart 3A and 3B: Strike rate of AIADMK and DMK against each other and each other’s alliance partners





Whether Tamil Nadu maintains its trend of declining victory margins, the growing footprint of the two major Dravidian parties and alliances being a necessity and liability at the same time in 2021 will only be known on May 2 when the results are declared.