Chennai: DMK president and chief minister M K Stalin on Friday set an ambitious target for his party to win 200 seats out of the 234 assembly seats in the 2026 state elections in Tamil Nadu.
“For the next two years, we should work keeping in mind the assembly elections,” Stalin told the DMK’s district secretaries who were called for the meeting in the party’s headquarters in Chennai. “We will have to prepare to face the elections. While responding to criticism, we should also speak about our achievements to people. The target of winning 200 seats is not an election gimmick.”
The meeting also passed three resolutions including commending the rival BJP-led Union government for issuing a ₹100 centenary coin in memory of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi. But, in another resolution DMK condemned the Centre for neglecting Tamil Nadu in the Union budget. A third resolution was passed for celebrating the DMK’s platinum jubilee.
Stalin is scheduled to leave for the US on August 27 for a fortnight, he said, to attract investments. “I will continue to monitor the government and the party’s election work from there,” Stalin said. He spoke in detail about the landslide win in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections where as part of the INDIA bloc they won all 39 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry. Stalin’s book ‘Parliamentary Elections: 40/40 Verdict of the South” was released during the meeting. He told the cadre that if they continue to work the same way, the DMK will continue to defeat the opposition AIADMK and BJP.
“For the next two years work with a single-point agenda to bring our government back to power,” Stalin said. “We have done so much work for the people. The government’s schemes are devised in a manner that every household in the state gets benefited from them. The welfare schemes that have reached people should convert into votes. To achieve this, groundwork is crucial and we should begin working from today.”
{{/usCountry}}“For the next two years work with a single-point agenda to bring our government back to power,” Stalin said. “We have done so much work for the people. The government’s schemes are devised in a manner that every household in the state gets benefited from them. The welfare schemes that have reached people should convert into votes. To achieve this, groundwork is crucial and we should begin working from today.”
{{/usCountry}}The DMK has constituted a coordination committee which includes Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi. They have been tasked to suggest organisational changes since the DMK faced a revolt against three of its mayors in municipal corporations in the last fortnight. The coordination committee has so far met twice and updated Stalin on their deliberations.
In the 2021 assembly polls, the DMK alliance secured a two-thirds majority by winning 156 seats out of the 234. The AIADMK and BJP who were in alliance then won the remaining 75 seats to the AIADMK-BJP. With the AIADMK breaking off its alliance with the BJP, the Lok Sabha elections was a three cornered contest besides the Naam Tamizhar Katchi, a Tamil nationalist party contesting on its own. 2026 assembly elections will also see the entry of popular actor Vijay’s Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) making it a multi-cornered contest.