DMK's post-Lok Sabha high came crashing down on Thursday as the AIADMK won both the Nanguneri and Vikravandi Assembly bye-election seats in the state. With an impressive 44,917-vote margin, Muthamilselvan of the AIADMK defeated DMK's N Pugazhenthi in Vikravandi. R Manoharan of the Congress, the DMK’s alliance partner, lost to V Narayanan of the AIADMK by over 33,000 votes. The alliance lost both the seats which it held since the 2016 Assembly Elections when the AIADMK swept back into power for a second term.
While DMK chief MK Stalin issued a statement accepting the people’s mandate, party insiders and observers say that the defeat reveals a glaring lack of coordination between the two alliance partners— Congress and DMK— as well as a strategic miscalculation by the main opposition party. The results were preceded by heated political campaigning in Tirunelveli and Villupuram districts which witnessed Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and DMK chief Stalin engaging in a war of words. Now in addition to giving the ruling party the momentum it needs ahead of the upcoming local body polls, this victory also strengthens Palaniswami's hand in the Assembly, notching up the AIADMK's seat share to 125 in the 234-member House.
Nanguneri: A disorderly alliance?
The elections to this Assembly segment in Tirunelveli were held on account of Congress leader H Vasanthakumar winning the Lok Sabha polls held in April this year. Having become MP from Kanyakumari, he was required to vacate his MLA seat. What should have been a comfortable seat-retention for the Congress came a cropper for the party, thanks to unenthused DMK cadres on the ground.
“There was a lack of coordination from the start. The DMK cadres were not as enthusiastic campaigning for the Congress in Nanguneri as they were in Vikravandi for their own party,” says one Tamil Nadu Congress Committee leader. “Since the parliamentary elections, there has been a feeling that we (the Congress) are riding on their success. The district-level leaders of the DMK should have been able to undo this feeling at least for the sake of the elections, but it never happened. In the face of money power and muscle power, the need to be united was much more,” says the Congress source.
When asked about this, Congress spokesperson Americai V Narayanan says, “There is a great camaraderie and understanding in principle between the DMK and the Congress both in terms of policies and the current political situation. We need each other. The lesson for both of us from these bye-polls is that we need to make the cadres understand that united we stand, divided we fall. This understanding has to be with the cadres as it is with the top leadership of the party. We should not say or do things that hurt the other side emotionally and we must learn to extend each other the same diplomacy. Moreover, we are ideologically on the same side.”
Vikravandi: a strategic miscalculation?
Speaking to TNM, senior journalist Shyam Tharasu points out that the last-minute Vanniyar outreach by the DMK in Vikravandi massively backfired. With a significant population of the community in the constituency, the PMK, a party that primarily advocates for the Vanniyar mounted a vigorous attack on the DMK, aiding its ally, the AIADMK.
Ahead of the polls, Stalin issued a statement that the DMK would examine the demand of the Vanniyar caste in Tamil Nadu for compartmental reservation among the Most Backward Class (MBC) category, “soon as the DMK forms the government in the state.” Following massive protests by Vanniyars in the 1980s, the Karunanidhi government in 1989 divided the 50 percent Backward Class (BC) reservation into two i.e creating compartmental reservation: 30 percent for Other Backward Class (OBC) and 20 for Most Backward Class (MBC). Now, the Vanniyars, along with 106 other communities, would avail reservation under the MBC quota.
Reminding the community that this was an assurance that his father and former Chief Minister Karunanidhi had made, Stalin also assured that a ‘mani mandapam’ (memorial) would be built in honour of late DMK Minister A Govindasamy— a leader from the Vanniyar community. The memorial would also honour “martyrs from the Vanniyar community who had perished in the struggle for reservation”.
Shyam says, “Ramadoss (PMK chief) was, in fact, not actively campaigning until Stalin made this statement. This was what touched a nerve and propelled him into action. The DMK was in power for 12 years after Karunanidhi made the announcement (for reservation). So it would have made sense for Stalin to announce the compartmental MBC reservation that the community has been demanding as opposed to saying a future DMK government will consider it. This played into the hands of the PMK.”
Days before the polls, Stalin had praised Asuran, the recently-released Vetrimaaran-directorial for bravely questioning caste violence. Highlighting the caste atrocities against the Dalits in Tamil Nadu through generations, a crucial plot point in the film involves panchami lands, given to the Dalits by the British, being usurped by the dominant caste in the film.
Shyam observes that this may have also cost DMK the Vanniyar vote, stating, “Similarly, there was no need to praise Asuran just prior to the polls, a movie that speaks up against panchami lands belonging to Dalits being usurped by dominant castes. This led to the party being questioned over its own approach towards intermediate castes.”