Caste makeup, Dravidian party duopoly dominate TN politics

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like All of Tamil Nadu’s 234 assembly constituencies will go to polls on Thursday. The election campaign, at least for a week, was overtaken by a debate around delimitation and possible reduction in Tamil Nadu’s share in Lok Sabha seats. While the impact of this on the election results remains to be seen, it gives a useful segue to underline Tamil Nadu’s political exceptionalism vis-à-vis rest of India on other aspects as well. Here are four charts which flag this. India will count castes other than Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) for the first time in the forthcoming census. (File picture)Tamil Nadu is overwhelmingly non-upper casteIndia will count castes other than Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) for the first time in the forthcoming census. But we do have estimates on population of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and the proverbial upper castes or non-SC-ST-OBC population shares from government surveys such as the National Family and Health Survey (NFHS). A comparison of latest NFHS data shows that the combined share of SC-ST-OBC population in Tamil Nadu is 97.5%, the highest among all large states by a large distance. Tamil Nadu continues to lead here even if one were to compare share of just Hindu SC-ST-OBC population. Politics in Tamil Nadu continues to be dominated by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). These two regional parties are products of the larger Dravidian politics stream in the state. The combined vote share of the DMK and the AIADMK in the state has never fallen below 54% since 1977, the first election that the AIADMK contested. It crossed 70% in the last two elections. The seat share dominance of the two regional parties is even bigger. It has never fallen below 67% and was 96% and 85% in the last two elections. The Dravidian dominance in Tamil Nadu’s politics is significantly stronger than what it has been for other regional party duopolies with social justice roots competitions in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. When read with the data in the earlier section, it is likely rooted in the demographic dominance of non-upper castes in Tamil Nadu. But duopoly does not mean a single party dominance in Tamil Nadu The DMK led alliance has won three back-to-back elections in Tamil Nadu since the 2019 Lok Sabha. However, this is not the only such winning streak in Tamil Nadu. There are two more three-election streaks if one includes Lok Sabha elections. For example, AIADMK won 2011, 2014, and 2016 elections. The DMK won the state in 2004, 2006 and 2009 elections. If one excludes Lok Sabha elections, AIADMK is the only party to win three consecutive assembly elections from 1977 to 1984. Interestingly, the DMK or AIADMK do not really have a widespread geographical dominance in the state. Between 2011 and 2021, there were only 54 out of the 234 ACs in the state which were won by either the DMK or AIADMK in all three elections. This number is significantly smaller than the share of ACs won by arch-rivals Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala each time between 2011 and 2021. Pre-2011 ACs cannot be compared with current ones because of change in AC boundaries in the 2008. Another way to look at the bipartisan Dravidian dominance in Tamil Nadu politics is that other parties in the state, such as Congress, BJP and even the communists have allied with both the DMK and the AIADMK in different elections. Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. His weekly column for HT Premium Terms of Trade appears every Friday.