Madurantakam, Dharapuram bypolls: Why Anbumani’s ‘no one’ stand hits EPS hardest

Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) president Anbumani Ramadoss has stated that they will not support any party in the Madurantakam and Dharapuram by-elections in Tamil Nadu on October 6. He said the decision was taken after consulting state office-bearers and local cadres in the two constituencies.

The two seats fell vacant after sitting AIADMK MLAs Maragatham Kumaravel (Madurantakam) and P Sathyabama (Dharapuram) resigned and joined the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). Now, TVK has picked both as candidates for the bypolls.

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) had spoken as if PMK support was a settled courtesy from the last Assembly alliance. TVK, for its part, also tried to draw the PMK in. Anbumani has given neither of them support.

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He has given EPS an open reminder that the alliance still exists on paper but has stopped existing in the field. The question, then, is not whether the PMK has “left” the AIADMK but why a party that is electorally decisive in one of the two seats has chosen public abstinence.

PMK officials question AIADMK

Senior PMK functionaries ask, “This bypoll is a matter of political life and death for whom? For the PMK, or for the AIADMK?” The pressure to win, they say, is on Palaniswami. Yet AIADMK leaders would not sit down for a proper negotiation. Did the AIADMK wait for Anbumani to volunteer the votes? They asked.

“EPS’s indifference is the first cause,” PMK leaders said. The AIADMK, they allege, used its own internal trouble in 2026 Assembly elections as a reason to cut the PMK’s seats and then refused the constituencies the PMK had asked for. Worse, the transfer of votes was one-way. PMK votes went to AIADMK candidates in several places. AIADMK votes did not come back in the same measure.

They cite Dharmapuri district: PMK help, they say, put the AIADMK over the line in three out of five seats. In Pennagaram, the return never arrived. Tiruvannamalai district, which has eight seats, was no different as AIADMK office-bearers reportedly worked for their party’s Jayasudha in Arani and abandoned the PMK nominee Baskaran CR in Polur. Palaniswami, they say, did not notice, or chose not to.

PMK’s loss in Perambur

Perambur, where TVK chief C Joseph Vijay won, is held up as the ugliest exhibit. What had the AIADMK polled there in 2016 and 2021? In 2026, PMK’s Tilagabama managed just 8,561 votes and finished third behind Vijay and DMK’s RD Shekar. “Where did the AIADMK votes go? Would this have happened if Jayalalithaa had been leading the party?” PMK leaders asked. Cadres become careless, they argue, when the leader cannot command them.

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Palaniswami wants Dharapuram and does not lose sleep over Madurantakam. He will not come down and ask. He expects the PMK to walk across and offer. “Why should we go down?” a PMK leader said.

Some critics claimed that money is the real plot. PMK leaders dismissed it. The 2026 alliance, they concede, did not give them a fair hand. This bypoll, they add, does not create a cash need of that kind.

Journalist Swaminathan draws the map that Anbumani’s statement deliberately blurs. In Dharapuram, the PMK is a spectator. Its core Vanniyar vote is not a force there. In Madurantakam, it is unavoidable. Contesting alone in 2016 under the “Maatram Munnetram Anbumani” slogan, with Anbumani projected as chief ministerial candidate, the PMK still took about 9 per cent in the seat. That is not a sentimental statistic. It is a swing block.

The constituency’s habit, Swaminathan notes, is to lean towards the ruling party. The exceptions are instructive. In 2021, the DMK was in office and the AIADMK still won. In 2026, even as the political weather turned towards the TVK, the AIADMK won again. The PMK vote bank, he argues, is the reason those exceptions held. The 10.5 per cent Vanniyar reservation brought in by an AIADMK government remains part of that memory. So every party wants Anbumani’s nod in Madurantakam. The AIADMK needs it most. The PMK knows that, and is using the knowledge.

After the 2026 results, district secretaries meeting under Anbumani did not speak like grateful allies. They spoke like creditors. In Polur, Sholingur, Mayiladuthurai and Uthiramerur, they alleged, AIADMK functionaries did not even come to the ground. The work was nominal. The bitterness has a still older twin. In the 2024 Vikravandi by-election, when the PMK contested, the AIADMK not only stayed away but refused support. PMK workers now throw the question back: they would not help us then; why should we help them now?

Erode East bypoll result

When the AIADMK boycotted the Erode East bypoll, its voters did not stay home. They shocked their own leadership by moving towards the then ruling DMK. Anbumani has not asked his cadres to repeat that trick. He has only refused to stop them from thinking about it.

AIADMK circles say that the PMK was in our alliance. Its demands have grown. This “supporting nobody” is indirect help to the TVK. AIADMK spokesperson Pongalur R. Manikandan told The Federal: the PMK trusted us and then cheated us. Beyond the “political games,” he insisted, the AIADMK would still win.

That confidence is exactly what PMK leaders say they no longer share. TVK, meanwhile, has been making the small, expensive gestures that alliances notice. Importance for Sowmiya Anbumani, wife of Anbumani and Dharmapuri MLA and a “Thagaisal Tamizhar” honour for Anbumani’s father.

Direct support to TVK is harder: the VCK sits in that front, and the PMK will not walk into that company in a hurry. Abstention solves the problem. It denies EPS without marrying Vijay.

Significance of Vanniyar votes

Political observer Dayalan Shanmugam reads the move as architecture, not mood. The PMK, he says, is telling the state that the AIADMK-led front is not the only future on offer. The bypoll is a chance to build demand. If the AIADMK loses, the blame can be parked on EPS’s arrogance. If the PMK later walks with the AIADMK, or even away from it, into the local body elections, it can ask for a larger share of seats.

In Madurantakam, Shanmugam estimates, there may be around 30,000 Vanniyar votes. In a normal alliance weather, about 20,000 of those move to the AIADMK. With the PMK sitting it out, perhaps 10,000 still go there and 20,000 become swing, to be split between the DMK and the TVK. The AIADMK’s margin shrinks. The shrinkage helps the ruling party even if Anbumani never utters Vijay’s name. He also said that Anbumani has decided that silence is the one language Palaniswami cannot take for granted.