Still stuck in election defeat, DMK struggles to move on, combat TVK

Four months after a stunning Assembly poll defeat, the DMK still looks like a party that has not left the counting hall.

Once the unchallenged force of Tamil Nadu politics, it now sits in the Opposition with 59 seats while actor Joseph Vijay’s TVK, barely two years old, holds 108 and runs the government. The shock has not faded. Political observers say it's time for the DMK to end its meltdown and take a sharp, cricical look at itself. That, it appears, is not happening.

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The most personal blow remains Kolathur. Party chief and former Chief Minister MK Stalin, who had held the Chennai seat three times, lost to VS Babu of the TVK by 8,795 votes. Stalin did not accepted the result as final. He went to court seeking a recount of VVPAT slips and a check of every voting machine.

The Madras High Court dismissed the petition as not maintainable, telling him an election result cannot be overturned through a writ petition. The Supreme Court proceedings have brought only a public rebuke from the bench. The case is closed, and the hurt remains. No senior leader has stood up and said, plainly, that the party itself failed.

DMK struggles to find answers

Talk of internal reform floats around the office. Sources told The Federal a four-member group led by Stalin, his son and MLA Udhayanidhi Stalin, sister and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, and son-in-law Sabareesan has begun splitting districts and naming new organisers. Yet there is no clear plan for how to deal with the new government.

For instance, the DMK high command feels its senior MLAs have not attacked the TVK government strongly enough in the ongoing Assembly session. Top sources say some veteran party leaders have begun asking themselves what the DMK’s future really looks like, and whether staying on this path still makes sense for them.

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The DMK spent two years telling itself it would win, and then believed its own story, noted political observer A Hari Madhavan. "It lost in Chennai, Tiruvallur and the delta districts, places it once treated as home. Even in 1991, the party did not suffer such a beating in the state capital," he told The Federal.

A loss that hurts

In 1991, the AIADMK-Congress alliance enjoyed a landslide victory, giving J Jayalalithaa her first tenure as chief minister. The DMK alliance barely made seven seats against the rival alliance's 225 seats, but it lost to its decade-long arch rival, the AIADMK.

Losing to newbie TVK this time presents a different challenge altogether to the Dravidian giant. The party did win a few unexpected seats in Nagercoil, Thirumangalam, Kovilpatti, Periyakulam, Andipatti and Mudukulathur, but no one is sure those wins would hold if voters were asked again tomorrow. Money and organisation were supposed to be enough, but Vijay turned that theory on its head.

Votes the party expected from Dalit, Christian and Muslim communities went to the TVK. That, Madhavan says, the DMK still cannot come to terms with.

Udhayanidhi faces the real test

With Stalin and several other top DMK leaders losing this election, it has fallen on his son and former deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi to hold the fort. The Chepauk MLA has been taking on Vijay and his government in the Assembly, but has not yet gone into the field to meet party workers, the way his grandfather and father once did.

When the party was in power he visited the headquarters on and off. If he'd do the same while in Opposition, workers and the public might perceive him in better light, say party insiders.

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Political observer Dhayalan Shanmugam sees a different picture. He says the party is beginning to look at why it lost and is ready to change. Udhayanidhi’s work after the election has been impressive, Shanmugam insisted.

"He speaks calmly, and was composed even when the new government arrested him alleging his speech was slanderous," said Shanmugam, adding that the TVK is already finding Udhayanidhi a difficult opponent.

'Old gen in new political stage'

Ramu Manivannan, former Head of the Politics & Public Administration Department at the University of Madras, is less hopeful. The DMK has not spoken openly about the defeat, he notes, adding that senior workers are not allowed to speak freely inside the party. Neither have district secretaries been changed.

"This is not an old ideological fight," Manivannan told The Federal. "It's new-generation politics between Vijay and Udhayanidhi. The DMK looks weak in that contest and so it stays silent."

As long as Udhayanidhi remains the party’s public face, the problem will continue, according to him. Had Stalin himself won, a rebound might have been far easier for the DMK, he added.

For now, Tamil Nadu’s trend is film-star-plus-club-style politics, and the DMK has not learned how to handle it, said Manivannan. "The party ignored the young for 30-40 years. That long-standing mistake cannot be fixed in a hurry," he observed.

Waiting and watching

The DMK, meanwhile, is waiting for the TVK government to underperform and come undone.

Party spokesman TKS Elangovan says the Vijay government has done nothing so far for the people. "Its ministers speak loudly, but their main business is attacking the DMK," he said, adding that many ministers’ speeches are later struck off the record. He called it the "worst chapter in Indian legislative history."

The DMK has lost elections before, and has always bounced back, Elangovan told The Federal. "When a sitting government fails, people start remembering the last one that actually did something for them. Farmers are on the streets. Every section of society is restless," he said adding it's the real scorecard after 100 days of Vijay's governance.

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If anyone is harking on the past, it's the TVK, said Elangovan. "Whenever the DMK raises the present law-and-order situation, the new government only points to the past. It will not answer what is happening now," he said.

What the future holds

Elangovan accused the TVK of being unable to stand up for Tamil causes. Cauvery water must reach Tamil Nadu, he insisted.

"No government can decide that water will flow only for a few days. Across the world, river water cannot be stopped from reaching lower terrains. When Karnataka refuses to release water, these people should fight," he said. "They do not care about Tamil Nadu’s people or farmers."

Meanwhile, it's widely whispered that the DMK is mulling a different alliance for the 2029 Lok Sabha election, perhaps even with the BJP. Critics warn that such a move would cost it the minority votes it is already losing its grip on.