Can a broader NDA defeat the DMK in Tamil Nadu? | Number Theory

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) Tamil Nadu campaign with a rally near Chennai on Friday. The effort seems to be a course correction for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which parted ways with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with the explicit aim of growing independently. The NDA’s Tamil Nadu performance was the worst across all major states in the country, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led alliance won all 39 parliamentary constituencies (PCs). With the reunion, will the NDA reap the rewards of this unity in elections that will happen early this summer. Looking at the pre-poll arithmetic can help answer this question.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami during an NDA rally at Maduranthakam in Chengalpattu district of Tamil Nadu on January 23. (PTI)

Can a broader NDA defeat the DMK in Tamil Nadu?

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  Simply adding the NDA constituent votes from 2024 makes the DMK bloc’s landslide victory much smaller

  As of now, the NDA comprises seven parties in Tamil Nadu, which include the AIADMK, BJP, the PMK faction led by Anbumani Ramadoss, AMMK, TMC (Moopanar) and others. If one were to add the vote share of all these parties from 2024 Lok Sabha elections and compare them with what the DMK led alliance polled, then the latter’s assembly constituency (AC) level lead would fall from 221 to 150 segments. To be sure, the vote share of individual parties might not transfer or add perfectly when they come together in an alliance, but the larger fact is that the DMK-led alliance did gain disproportionately from the lack of opposition unity in the 2024 elections. This is also borne out by the fact that the seat-to-vote-share ratio of DMK-led alliance at the PC level was 2.13; the highest in the state since 1991, the earliest period for which HT could reconcile alliance numbers.
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  However, the DMK bloc did win the 2021 state polls when the BJP and AIADMK contested in an alliance

  This one statistic should act as a caution for any hubris on the part of the NDA. Despite the AIADMK and the BJP contesting together, along with the smaller ally Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) in the 2021 assembly elections, the DMK led alliance scored a comfortable victory over the incumbent AIADMK-led NDA in the state with a vote share lead of almost five percentage points. The seat share difference between the two alliances was significantly larger than the vote share difference, which is often the case in a first-past-the-post system.
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  The real challenge for the NDA is whether the AIADMK can rediscover its mojo

  When the AIADMK won the 2016 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, it surprised most pollsters who were expecting a DMK victory. AIADMK’s 2016 victory was largely on account on its leader’s and incumbent chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s popularity in the state. However, since her passing in 2016, the AIADMK has struggled with factional feuds, and the lack of a charismatic leader as far as voters are concerned. Alliances, or lack of them, have not really been of much help in overcoming this challenge. This is best seen in a fall in AIADMK’s vote share and contested vote share in the elections held after Jayalalithaa’s death in the state.
• Anti-incumbency and caste dynamics will matter a lot as far as the 2026 results are concerned

  This will perhaps be the most important factor as far as the results are concerned. The DMK led alliance peaked in terms of vote share in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when it polled more than 50% of the popular vote. While its vote share did drop in the 2021 assembly election and the 2024 Lok Sabha election, it was still comfortably over 45%. Unless, the DMK alliance loses some of its support base to either the NDA or other parties, it might still be able to survive the challenge. This is where both anti-incumbency or lack of it and dynamics of securing support of various caste groups in the state will matter .