With two significant players in the northern districts in its fold — the DMDK and the PMK — the NDA in Tamil Nadu was touted as the dark horse in this region. But with the results of the Lok Sabha elections out, the chemistry of the alliance has come under the scanner.
The DMDK cut a sorry figure after its vote share almost halving, compared with the 10.3 per cent it polled in the 2009 elections. Even the party founder Vijayakant’s brother-in-law, L.K. Sudeesh, finished a distant third in Salem.
On the other hand, the PMK, which restricted itself to constituencies in the north, witnessed a decrease in vote share of about 1.3 per cent, though it contested two seats more than the six it did in 2009. The face-saver was the victory of Anbumani Ramadoss in Dharmapuri.
Political commentator A. Marx says the results pointed to the two dominant communities in the northern region — Dalits and Vanniyars — largely preferring the AIADMK. In this regard, he says, the ‘AIADMK wave’ has transcended consolidation around identity that was expected in the region in the aftermath of the Dharmapuri clashes of 2012.
“The DMK has not benefited from its alliance with a Dalit party [the VCK]. Given the huge margins, it is clear the AIADMK also ate into Vanniyar votes,” he points out.
“In almost all constituencies we contested, we have increased our votes, compared with last time. But the AIADMK’s wave was too strong to counter,” a DMDK MLA said.
The drop in the DMDK’s vote share, he said, could be because of the party contesting just 14 seats against 39 in 2009. “The challenge would be to keep the flock together and revive [the party] before the 2016 Assembly polls,” he said.
A senior PMK leader pointed out that the party’s recent campaign to unite non-Dalit communities seemed to have failed. “The AIADMK has won with huge margins in almost all seats in the north. The only conclusion is that many Vanniyars and Dalits have voted for the AIADMK,” he said.
A BJP leader said allotting 14 seats to the DMDK might have been a mistake. “The BJP’s vote share in Tamil Nadu has doubled since 2009. The delay in seat-sharing talks created a poor perception of the alliance among voters. This affected the NDA’s performance,” he said.
In the south, while the BJP won Kanyakumari, the MDMK had to face the ignominy of its leader Vaiko biting the dust in Virudhunagar.
Pondy wonderDespite the fractures in the NDA in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the results from the Union Territory came as a surprise. The Congress veteran and Union Minister, V Narayanasamy, was defeated by a margin of 60,000 votes by R. Radhakrishnan, a former Speaker of the Assembly, who contested on All India NR Congress ticket. The PMK and the DMDK had opposed the allotment of the seat to the AINRC, yet the party won with the sole support of the BJP.
