Will Stalin's Return After 2026 Assembly Polls Lead To The End Of The Dravidian Binary?

This had been the story until 2021, when the two parties had to face the elections without their stalwarts—J. Jaya­lalithaa and M. Karunanidhi—who passed away in 2016 and 2018 respectively. The general impression was that the parties would lose steam, leading to the end of their ‘duopoly’. The BJP saw an opportunity to breach the Dravidian fort which had defied the ‘Modi wave’, calculating that AIADMK leaders would be easy pickings, and the 54-year-old party—wracked by schisms—would crumble under the BJP’s power and manipulations. It was easier said than done. Edappadi K.

Palaniswami held on to power for four years without upsetting the BJP-led Union govern­ment. Simultaneously, with his no-holds-barred tactics, ‘survival artist’ Palaniswami tightened his grip on the party—outplaying and ousting V. K. Sasikala, who crowned him as chief minister, her nephew T. T. V. Dhinakaran, and marginalising O. Panneerselvam, who was cherry-picked by Jayalalithaa twice to hold the fort following her conviction in corruption cases and consequent disqualification from the assembly.

Panneerselvam also served as chief minister for two months immediately after the death of Jayalalithaa. The AIADMK contested the 2021 election as a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner, but lost. It attributed the defeat to the alienation of minorities as a result of its alliance with the BJP. In the parliamentary election of 2024, he dared to chart an independent path, keeping the BJP out of the new alliance he forged. But the AIADMK-led front was routed. Now, the BJP has managed to bring him around completely using all the ‘weapons at its disposal’—the weapons it brazenly uses against political opponents and reluctant allies.

In sharp contrast was the post-Karunanidhi DMK’s track record. It won the 2021 election, now under the leadership of M. K. Stalin, thanks to a political alliance he has kept intact with a highly accommodative approach. This alliance has won three back-to-back elections in 2019, 2021 and 2024. In the five years he had been in office, Chief Minister Stalin has gone all out to consolidate his power by expanding the concept of social justice—the bedrock of Dravidian politics—beyond reservations, launching a series of welfare measures aimed at mainly women, introducing innovative schemes to fulfil the aspirations of students from the backward sections of society and providing them free breakfast schools, in addition to the midday meal scheme.

Above all, he has evoked memories of the vintage DMK, fighting for the state’s rights, highlighting the glories and the antiquity of the Dravidian civilisation, backed by a series of archaeological excavations, opposing the BJP-led Union government’s ‘attempt to impose Hindi/Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu’, and being an active participant of the opposition alliance at the all-India level. Faced with an enemy which is more formidable—politically and ideologically—than what his predecessors had faced, Stalin has revived the old Dravidian themes to counter the BJP, which is projected as representing whatever the Dravidian movement set out to fight against a century ago.

As Tamil Nadu moves into the election mode again, the AIADMK, organisationally weaker and ideologically compromised, is facing a DMK that has expanded its ‘ideology-based secular’ alliance and positioned itself as the best bet to push back the onslaught of the hyper centralised, Hindutva-oriented BJP and its government. It is in this situation that doubts about the AIADMK’s future have grown stronger and, more importantly, talk of the end of the Dravidian binary has resurfaced.

In a way, the ideological decline of the AIADMK as a Dravidian party had started during the MGR era itself. Since its inception, the party had been entirely dependent on the huge popularity and charisma of MGR and his successor Jayalalithaa. Its entire politics revolved around attacking the DMK from which it had broken away in 1972, paving the way for intense personal animosities between the rank and file of both the parties. However, it had an unintended, positive fallout in the sense that the political rivalry turned into competitive welfarism to win popular support, benefiting a large section of people and creating a solid social base for the two parties.

Binary politics became the order of the day, precluding the possibility of the emergence of a non-Dravidian alternative strong enough to challenge their ‘duopoly’. Ideology took a back seat, especially in the case of the AIADMK. MGR, more of a God-fearing nationalist keen on being friends with the party at the Centre than a ‘Dravidian’, went to the extent of striking at the root of social justice by introducing an economic criterion in reservation.

The popular backlash against this move became evident in 1980 when MGR lost heavily in the parliamentary elections. To make amends, he increased reservation for the backward classes from 31 per cent to 50 per cent, taking the overall reservation in Tamil Nadu to 68 per cent. (Later Karunanidhi added one per cent reservation for the Scheduled Tribes). Two of MGR’s party men joined the Janata Party Cabinet led by Prime Minister Charan Singh in 1979. The decline of the Congress and the era of coalitions opened up the possibility of the anti-centrists becoming part of the Centre. Their political moves were driven more by the need to strengthen themselves and keep the regional rival under check than by ideology.

Although Jayalalithaa was credited with giving a solid constitutional backing for the 69 per cent reservation in the state and refusing to play second fiddle to national parties, some of her stances and decisions indicated a Right-ward shift. As the Ayodhya campaign was gaining momentum, she supported kar seva. Later, in 2003, she came out in support of building a Ram Temple at Ayodhya and enacting a uniform civil code. In 1998, she had an electoral alliance with the BJP, a first for a Dravidian party. But, within a year, she brought down the NDA government led by the BJP. Karunanidhi moved in, striking an alliance with the BJP on the condition that the RSS-backed outfit kept in abeyance its three core agendas—Ram Temple, uniform civil code, and the abrogation of Article 370.

As a result, the two Dravidian parties, post-Karunanidhi and post-Jayalalithaa, present a study in contrast. While Stalin has firmly restored the ideological moorings of his party and taken forward the social justice-based development path laid by his predecessors, Palaniswami is seen to have surrendered to the powerful rulers at the Centre. The military-like discipline of his party that Jayalalithaa boasted of has become a thing of the past, with its prominent leaders, including Panneerselvam, joining the DMK. Sasikala has launched a new party pledging to teach Palaniswami a lesson. Dhinakaran, a trenchant critic of Palaniswami until the other day, has been forced to share the dais with the former chief minister.

If the AIADMK suffers a second successive defeat, the process of its disintegration is expected to gain momentum. In that eventuality, a huge opposition space would open up in Tamil Nadu. Who could occupy it?

With his anti-Dravidian Tamil nationalism, Seeman has not been able to make headway. Actor Vijay with his mishmash ideology and a nebulous organisation depending entirely on his fan base is yet to test the waters.

As things stand now, the assembly election in Tamil Nadu, due on April 23, may well be another watershed like 1967.

(Views expressed are personal)

This article appeared in Outlook's April 11, 2026 issue titled 'Warlord'

R. Vijaya Sankar is former editor, Frontline