Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2021

Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2021 was held in a single phase on April 6. The votes will be counted on May 2. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) alliance has been challenged by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led group which is seeking to capture power. Tamil Nadu used to follow a pattern of alternating power between the DMK and AIADMK, but Jayalalithaa broke it by re-establishing AIADMK's rule in the 2016 Assembly election. This was the first time that a ruling party came back to power since 1984. Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK won 135 seats, whereas DMK won 88. The BJP was not able to win a single seat in the last Assembly election. This time, there is added pressure on DMK leader MK Stalin and AIADMK's E Palaniswami, who are leading their respective camps for the first time in assembly polls. Till now, both the parties fought elections under the leadership of iconic leaders - Jayalalithaa (AIADMK) and M Karunanidhi (DMK). While Jayalalithaa passed away in 2016, Karunanidhi died in 2018. Stalin led his party to a sweep in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 - the DMK-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 38 of the 39 seats in the state. Jayalalithaa's aide VK Sasikala, who was considered a strong force in Tamil Nadu politics, bowed out last month, leaving his nephew TTV Dhinakaran's Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam to contest the election alone. It was Sasikala who chose Palaniswami in the scrum that followed Jayalalithaa's death.