Ballots outside, bargains inside

The 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election has sent shockwaves not only across Tamil Nadu but throughout India. The defeat of well-known electoral heavyweights in their own constituencies — despite holding powerful ministerial positions — at the hands of relatively unknown political challengers is not entirely new to global politics, but it is certainly a striking development in the electoral history of Tamil Nadu.

The major Dravidian alliances, particularly the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, continued to depend heavily on traditional vote-bank politics and cash-for-vote strategies during the election. While such methods had historically influenced electoral outcomes, they failed to fully capture the changing political consciousness of Gen Z voters, first-time voters, and especially women across Tamil Nadu.

The two major Dravidian parties, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, continue to retain significant electoral relevance despite alternating decades in and out of power. The DMK, in particular, has historically demonstrated an ability to stage strong political comebacks even after monumental electoral defeats under leaders such as M.G. Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa.

However, parties such as the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Dalit-based parties such as Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and Puratchi Bharatham Katchi, and community-based parties such as Pattali Makkal Katchi, which have largely depended on alliance politics for electoral survival over the past three decades, must now reconsider whether they possess the capacity to independently build cadre strength, expand membership, and sustain long-term political relevance beyond alliance structures and electoral adjustments.

The rapid rise of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam and its ability to emerge as a serious electoral force despite repeated criticism regarding its political inexperience has raised larger questions about the need to restructure political culture in Tamil Nadu. The success of TVK cannot be viewed merely as a celebrity-driven phenomenon; it also reflects growing public frustration with the closed and oligarchic functioning of established political parties.

The internal democracy of almost every political party is increasingly being questioned by the general public, particularly by younger voters who hesitate to join parties that are perceived to be controlled by entrenched local power centres and oligarchic structures. The concentration of decision-making power within a few individuals, families, or district-level networks has alienated large sections of politically conscious youth. In that context, the rapid growth of TVK must be analysed as a response to the broader crisis of internal party democracy in Tamil Nadu politics.

Political accommodation, visibility

A political party that continuously sends the message that committed cadres have no real place in leadership, regardless of decades of sacrifice and organisational work, does not merely weaken itself — it actively drives away an entire generation of politically conscious youth. Those denied space within entrenched party structures will inevitably seek alternative political platforms, and many such frustrated cadres now view Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam as a vehicle for political accommodation and visibility. Sadly, this culture has become the norm across almost all parties, including sections of the Left and democratic movements, where leadership is increasingly manufactured not from the struggles of the masses but from closed-room discussions, dining-table loyalties, factional patronage, and coffee-table politics among a privileged inner circle.

The rise of M.K. Stalin within the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cannot be casually dismissed as mere dynastic politics, as it involved decades of organisational work, political imprisonment, electoral participation, and sustained contribution to the movement. However, such examples cannot justify the rise of several other leaders across parties solely because of family influence or powerful patrons within party structures. The elevation of individuals without proportionate sacrifice, ideological commitment, or grassroots work has created deep frustration among cadres and politically conscious youth. This growing disillusionment with mainstream political parties has weakened public faith in internal democracy and increasingly pushed many towards caste-based and communal organisations, where they feel their voices, identities, and political aspirations are more directly acknowledged and mobilised.

An internal autocratic and despotic culture cannot sustain for long within a political movement that fundamentally depends on mass mobilisation rather than muscle power or money power. Over the past three decades, leadership selection in many parties has increasingly been shaped not by ideological clarity, organisational ability, or commitment to the people, but by performative loyalty and personal allegiance to individual leaders. In many cases, loyalty to the leadership has replaced loyalty to the party, the movement, and the very class interests for which those organisations were originally founded. Such a political culture gradually weakens cadre morale, suppresses internal debate, discourages capable grassroots organisers, and transforms mass movements into personality-driven structures detached from their original social and ideological purpose.

Search for alternatives

The large section of voters who shifted towards Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam are not some alien political class emerging from elsewhere, but the very same brothers, sisters, mothers, workers, youth, and vulnerable sections of Tamil society who felt unheard and excluded within existing political spaces. Many among the working class and unorganised sectors, frustrated by rigid and closed party structures that denied them participation and recognition, began searching for an alternative political platform. The political wave that emerged around TVK should, in many ways, have been created earlier by democratic and alternative political formations such as Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam led by Vaiko, the democratic mobilisation attempted by Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam under Vijayakanth, as well as Left and Dalit political movements. The rise of TVK is, therefore, not merely a failure of traditional parties, but the political assertion of long-unheard voices neglected for decades by dominant party structures.

The question of democracy does not end at the ballot box; it must also extend to the internal structure of political parties themselves. A party that refuses to practise democracy internally cannot morally claim to defend democracy merely to capture state power. The real issue is not simply dynastic politics, but the absence of transparent and accountable internal democratic processes. Political transitions such as from Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi, or contemporary examples involving Akhilesh Yadav and Mr. Stalin, belonged to a different political era. A new generation of politically conscious youth, much like the movements witnessed in Nepal, increasingly questions authority, leadership legitimacy, and closed power structures. Every elevation within a party must carry a justified political and organisational basis. A party that believes the public and its own cadres are not entitled to an explanation regarding leadership succession has little moral authority to seek votes in the name of democracy, as such politics risks becoming nothing more than a modern return of hereditary ruling classes to power.

Subash Mohan is an advocate in the Madras High Court. Views expressed are personal