Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) has won 108 seats of the 234 seats in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The Dravidian heavyweights, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), are at 59 seats and 47 seats, respectively. The message of the electorate is so stunning to most observers that it is easy to miss the collateral benefits.
1) TVK is the only brand new party to emerge and find electoral success post Modi. The last decade of party politics has seen existing parties allied with, co-opted into, and their elected representatives defect to the BJP in numbers high enough that the mothership is swallowed whole. This has left many states politically starved for regional parties, such as Karnataka, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, etc. No brand new party has risen successfully in any state. TVK is a first to achieve success as a regional platform, in the barren landscape of the last decade.
2) The rise of a brand new party, not cut from existing cloth, has created a pathway for sizeable sections of politically disengaged or jaded youth to become politically conscious and active. Numerous social media discussions during the elections have hosted hundreds of TVK enthusiasts learning about electoral and Assembly rules and norms. The ground, of course, has teemed with TVK supporters, as the results evidence.
3) While the large vote haul of the TVK implies broad support across age groups, both old and young, the average age of MLAs is likely to drop, due to large numbers of younger candidates fielded by the TVK. It is likely to be a closer match to the state demographic median, of around 37 years.
4) In a long, uninterrupted pattern, the Assembly is likely to have similar percentages of MLAs from minority communities, and a tragically low representation of women, as in the past. However, TN could get its first Christian CM, born of mixed parentage: Christian father and Hindu mother.
5) The emergence of TVK on the political landscape of Tamil Nadu has suppressed the BJP’s momentum by providing a native alternative. The TVK has comfortably occupied both the vacuum created due to the decline of the AIADMK and harnessed voter ennui from six decades of a two-party state. This makes it much harder than before for the BJP to find a footing in the crowded arena. It re-establishes TN, politically, as a purely regional state.
6) In doing so, the TVK has trawled all free radical votes outside of the core bases of the DMK and AIADMK, decimating support for Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) and other minor players. Instead, votes consolidated across the three major players and their allies.
7) The message of the electorate through the TVK surge is not one that rejects Dravidian politics, given Vijay’s open veneration of the Dravidian ideologues, Periyar and Annadurai. It is a vociferous comment, that the old politics that got Tamil Nadu this far is simply not enough to raise the state to the next plank. Brand new ideas, more efficient governance, and more optimal delivery mechanisms are being sought by a people tired of extractive clientelism.
8) Vijay is not like either MGR or Jayalalithaa, in that he had no exposure to politics before his first election. However, he is very much in their mould as far as his comfort with religion goes. MGR’s faith in Kollur Mookambika and Jayalalithaa’s devotion to Srirangam were out in the open, as with their secular visitations to churches and dargahs. Even as Vijay professes that he is a follower of Periyar and Anna, he too has rejected atheism, straddling avowed rationalism and performative faith.
9) The entrenched electoral caste arithmetic of Tamil Nadu has been shattered by Vijay’s debut. He cuts across social bases in completely orthogonal ways, and redraws the electoral map. Given his vote haul, it is clear that caste-based voting has diminished this time.
10) The TVK forging a tangential political path and synthesising an orthogonal electoral base while still aligning with the Dravidian ideology will force the DMK and AIADMK to overhaul or perish. Both Dravidian majors have hit a wall with their support base. They have so boxed themselves that the AIADMK is unable to expand their cache of ‘Backward Castes’, and the DMK is unable to sustain the Dalit bloc with dignity. Neither has fresh offerings for youth and women to support or join them. The success of the TVK exerts pressure on the two veterans to rethink their positioning and offerings, and reimagine vote banks, if they want to remain politically relevant.
11) Standard analyses have been rendered moot. The claims that the TVK didn’t have booth agents, or that their candidates were unknown, or that their vision for governance was unclear, didn’t hold water in a wave election. After all, neither MGR’s noon meal scheme nor Karunanidhi’s legislation to make women as coparcenaries in inheritance were promises in their manifestos.
12) Finally, the adage of ‘no-cash-no-vote’ has been debunked. It is a relief to know that public morality in Tamil Nadu, that had been degraded due to vote-buying, is not permanently scarred. However, maintaining this will be a humungous challenge for the TVK. Other parties who have emerged without paying for votes have not been able to sustain it after their first term.
Tamil Nadu is at the cusp of new politics. There is understandable fear of the unknown and untested. There is trepidation amongst people and businesses alike, that a rank newcomer, with zero experience in politics, will likely take charge of the fate of 8.5 crore Tamils.
That said, a Parliamentary system of governance embeds a series of checks and balances for these very possibilities. Institutions of the executive and an experienced bureaucracy will do much of the heavy lifting, and that should offer comfort. The Tamil Nadu Assembly, as an institution of the legislative, is designed to provide necessary checks. Outside of those, advisory roles and defections of seniors from major parties will fill some gaps.
Finally, it is also important to remember that a strong opposition can save the state from disaster, and the Tamils could not have voted themselves better opposition.
Tara Krishnaswamy is a political creature with an urge to write. She works on political and policy communication.
Views expressed are the author’s own.