Caste, corruption and coalition: How elections are fought and won

Time of India

19-05-2025

If Indian politics is a theatre, Tamil Nadu is a multiplex. Where cigarette flicks and dark glasses are the perennial symbols of style and substance, sycophancy does a tandava over psephology. And with the players ensconced in the ministerial thrones in Delhi, it is no longer just a southern delight. Arun Ram, Resident Editor, The Times of India, Tamil Nadu, who alternates between the balcony and the front row, says it incites as much as it excites. During the intervals, he chews on a bit of science and such saner things. LESS ... MORE
Most Indian elections centre around three 'C's — caste, corruption and coalition. The Tamil Nadu assembly election of 2026 won't be different. And the winner will be the one who plays the three cards strategically, not always overtly.
The two big players – DMK and AIADMK – which have their roots in an ideology that spoke of a casteless society, have been adept at political calculations based on caste. BJP is catching up. PMK and VCK have vanniyars and dalits as their vote base. NTK, the perennial loner, has made inroads into some dalit pockets, but Tamil sub-nationalism remains its core slogan with a limited appeal.
DMK has made a head start on the caste front with the recent cabinet shuffle. The removal of V Senthil Balaji and K Ponmudy was inevitable given the potential harm they posed to the party, and M K Stalin used the opportunity to 'balance' his cabinet ahead of the polls.
S S Sivasankar being given the additional charge of electricity was one way of placating vanniyars. S Muthusamy, who gets back the revenue-rich excise portfolio, hails from the gounder community (to which AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami and former BJP state president K Annamalai belong) that has considerable electoral say in the western districts. R S Raja Kannappan, a Yadava, has been moved to the forest ministry, making available the dairy ministry for the reinduction of T Mano Thangaraj, who can reach out to Christian Nadar voters in the south.
AIADMK, which has been doing a balancing act, with gounders and thevars in leadership roles, too has enough representation from all castes to be fielded in the next election. BJP leader Amit Shah is known for his mastery of what is euphemistically called social engineering. So, it wasn't a surprise that when the party decided to move Annamalai out of the state party chief's post, the first choice became Nainar Nagenthran, an influential thevar and a former AIADMK minister from Tirunelveli.
Dalits, who constitute more than 20% of the state's population, haven't been able to consolidate as a political force; what's left after divisions between sub-castes and supporters of different parties have aligned with VCK, making Thol Thirumavalavan a crucial ally of DMK. PMK, which has its prime vote base among vanniyars who constitute around 12% of the population, may not have many options than go with NDA as Thirumavalavan wouldn't be part of an alliance that includes PMK. The internal power struggle between its founder S Ramadoss and his son and party president Anbumani Ramadoss has diminished its bargaining chips.
Coming to the next 'C', corruption is an issue that every opposition party loves as a poll plank. Though corruption in govt hasn't reduced, DMK has so far been able to dodge charges against some of its ministers. While the governing party may keep the tainted ministers out of the fray, silently communicating that the cases against them are from their alleged past deals and not during the present tenure, corruption may not become the deciding factor unless Enforcement Directorate succeeds in building a case out of the alleged `1,000-crore Tasmac scam and provide admissible evidence against any of the incumbent ministers.
The third 'C' can work as a double-edged sword for major parties, especially DMK. As long as it is an electoral alliance, parties are happy with it; once it becomes a proposal for a coalition govt, worry lines show. In 2021, DMK won 133 of the 173 seats it contested, allowing it to form the govt on its own. If its tally falls below the 118-mark in the 234-assembly in 2026, coalition will cease to be a sweet word for Stalin.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.