With whitewash after 2019 Lok Sabha sweep, DMK under Stalin scripts rare history in Tamil Nadu politics
The electoral history of Tamil Nadu is replete with instances of winners taking it all - at least almost all
DMK supporters in Chennai rejoice as the party takes the lead in a majority of the seats in the state in early trends on June 4. (Photos | Justin George)
CHENNAI: This is a record that has seldom been scripted in modern Tamil Nadu politics since the emergence of Dravidian politics, barring the truly exceptional 1991 election that was held under the shadow of Rajiv Gandhi assassination.
The MK Stalin-led DMK and its allies won spectacular victories in back-to-back Lok Sabha elections, winning 38 out of 39 constituencies in 2019 and clean-sweeping all 39 in 2024.
The electoral history of Tamil Nadu is replete with instances of winners taking it all - at least almost all. That was the case in 2019 when the DMK-led coalition won all except Theni, which AIADMK's P Ravindranadh Kumar won. In 2014, late J Jayalalithaa led the AIADMK to bag 37 seats, with only Dharmapuri (won by NDA partner PMK's Anbumani Ramadoss) and Kanniyakumari (BJP's Pon Radhakrishnan). In 2004, the coalition that was to become the UPA won all 39.
The lone exception in this trend in the 2000s was 2009 when the AIADMK managed to perform creditably, winning 12 seats, though the DMK remained in power at the Centre.
The pattern was similar in the last millennium, when one party or a front won a brutal majority – except in 1999. That year, the AIADMK won 13 seats, but the BJP-led NDA, of which DMK was part of, that won 26 seats in Tamil Nadu formed government at the Centre.
In 1998, the AIADMK won 30 seats, leaving just 9 for the DMK and others in the rival camp, while the DMK and partners won all 39 seats in 1996.
In 1991, an election that came in the backdrop of Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the AIADMK and Congress won all 39 seats – the Dravidian major took a junior position in that election, contesting only 11 of the seats. This was preceded by the 38 seats that the same partners won in 1989.
The history before that, too, is similar: the AIADMK won 37 seats in 1984, the DMK bagged 37 in 1980, the AIADMK won 34 in 1977, DMK snagged 38 in 1971, and DMK won 36 in 1967.
But this time, the party and Stalin rewrote the script, winning consecutive Lok Sabha elections – and an Assembly poll and local body election in the period between the parliamentary polls. In doing that, his achievement surpasses even that of the titans of Tamil Nadu politics.
