TN Assembly Elections 2026 – Is this a Battle between Tamil Nadu and New Delhi ?

THe Tamil Nadu assemblage elections this yr is subtle and unassuming compared to before elections in the recent decades. This is non to intimate that the election dramas and campaign strategies are less interesting or without any excitement. This is a down-to-earth battle between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through its proxies. Though All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) is the leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, BJP is the critical force in determining the components of this alliance by building bridges and strengthening the network of allies from behind such as the reconciliation between TTV Dhinakaran and Edappadi K Palaniswami with Sasikala Natarajan kept under check via constant monitoring and notices.BJP began to notice that actor Vijay is not only capable of drawing youth and women voters but also present himself as an option for minority Christian community voters in the future. This is the most intriguing and compelling mindset of the BJP’s strategy with both short term benefits of popular sway and long term plan of breaking into the minority vote bank of the DMK. At the same time, BJP is also aware of the mutual inclination between the Congress and Vijay’s TVK which is unlikely to blossom into an electoral alliance in the near future. There is an influential view gaining ground both at the national and state level towards exploring the ties between the Congress party and the TVK in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry as and when the top leadership moves out in both Congress and the DMK. In which case, neither the current developments nor the potential shifts in the future are likely to yield favourable results for the BJP.The adoption of Vijay card may have been in the consideration of the BJP strategists for over a period of more than a year now with push for Andhra Pradesh model in line with Pawan Kalyan’s Janasena Party and Chandra Babu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) coalition, which could not materialize because of Palaniswami’s unwillingness to concede beyond a point as he perceived a long term threat and challenge from both the actor Vijay and cohabitation with BJP under the Sword of Damocles. Vijay was equally pretending to oscillate. He focuses on intensifying his resistance against the DMK while underplaying the TVK’s opposition to BJP in state politics.The BJP has helped to resurrect the decadent influence of cinema in Tamil Nadu politics. This is the real paradox of BJP’s attempts to end the reign of Dravidian parties rule in Tamil Nadu and particularly of its deep antipathy towards the DMK. The joining of O Pannerselvam (OPS) in DMK and the continued defiance of Palaniswami are two sides of the same coin exposing the failure and limitations of the BJP’s divide and rule strategy in Tamil Nadu politics. There are also substantial issues concerning the centre-state relations with regard to language policy, education, financial decentralization and delimitation challenges with enormous narrative control in favour of the DMK and trust deficiency against the BJP.All these factors contribute to the making of the DMK’s campaign strategy and dominant political narrative in state politics that the assembly election 2026 is between Tamil Nadu and New Delhi. In other words, the Centre-State issues would continue to dominant the campaign strategy of the DMK and inadvertently maintain the DMK’s narrative of Tamil Nadu Versus New Delhi. The DMK appears to be confident and organized in facing the assembly elections beyond the clear polarisation of opposition votes between the AIADMK-led NDA, actor Vijay’s TVK and Seeman’s Naam Thamizhar Katchi (NTK).It is vital to recall the organizational depth and cadre outreach of the DMK in a crucial political contest compared to other political parties including the AIADMK due to its current circumstances as a divided house with the prevailing trust deficiency between the AIADMK and BJP cadres. The booth management capability of TVK is both untested and almost non-existent given the management of party election offices spread across the state. Thus BJP faces another election in Tamil Nadu with a prospect of its own plot not only falling apart but also working against its own interests of survival and emerging stronger in a state suspicious of all that it believes and advocates as manipulative.(Prof.Ramu Manivannan is a Political Scientist – Scholar-Activist in areas of education, human rights and sustainable development. He is currently the Director, Multiversity – Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Kurumbapalayam Village, Vellore District, Tamil Nadu. )