PMK’s decision to join NDA prompted a section of its voters to shift to AIADMK

The surprise decision taken by the PMK founder Dr. S. Ramadoss and his son and party president Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss to leave its all-weather partner, AIADMK, and fight the Lok Sabha 2024 elections as a part of National Democratic Alliance in Tamil Nadu was met with both disbelief and fear.

Many local leaders felt that the alliance was a non-starter with a clear lack of chemistry between the PMK and the BJP. Local cadres across northern and western regions feared that core PMK voters could move to the AIADMK and not to the BJP as the two parties disagree vehemently on several issues such as exemption for Tamil Nadu from NEET exam, caste census across India, reservations in education and jobs for Economically Weaker Sections and the pro-Hindi tilt of the BJP.

A look at the election results suggests that in the 10 seats PMK contested in, almost all in the Vanniyar belt where the party claims to have a strong base, shows that a substantial portion of PMK’s vote bank appears to have moved away in key constituencies.

For instance, in Villupuram and Chidambaram, the two constituencies where VCK candidates, D. Ravikumar and Thol. Thirumavalavan contested against AIADMK and the BJP, a substantial section of PMK’s core vote bank seems to have to shifted to AIADMK and not to the BJP, as feared.

In Chidambaram constituency, where the PMK has a strong presence, VCK founder Thol. Thirumavalavan secured 505084 votes against the AIADMK candidate, Chandrahasan M, who secured 401530 votes and came second. The BJP candidate secured just 168493 votes and came third. For context, the AIADMK, in alliance with the PMK and BJP in 2019, only narrowly lost by just over 3000 votes to Mr. Thirumavalavan as they secured 497010 votes.

In Villupuram, again, VCK candidate D. Ravikumar polled 477033 votes against AIADMK candidate Bhagyaraj J who secured 406330 votes while PMK just secured 181882 votes. However, in 2019 when PMK was in an alliance with the AIADMK, PMK candidate Dr. Vadivel Ravanan secured over 4.30 lakh votes against Mr. Ravikumar, who won in Rising Sun symbol by securing over 5.5 lakh votes.

Asked to explain the trend, PMK leaders say that this could be because their voters could have preferred to vote for the party and candidate that has the best chance of winning against VCK candidates. Also, PMK sources said that the BJP’s sizeable vote polled in seats such as Tiruvallur and Tiruvannamalai, for instance, was possible only because of an alliance with the PMK and it was not entirely true that its vote bank has not transferred as much as expected.

The trend could be seen in seats such as Salem and Kallakurichi Lok Sabha constituencies as well. In Salem Lok Sabha constituency, it was a straight contest between DMK and AIADMK with PMK coming a distant third. While DMK candidate Selvaganapathi TM secured 566085 votes and AIADMK candidate, Vignesh P polled 495728 votes, PMK’s Annadurai N polled just 127139 votes. In comparison, the PMK had in fact secured close to 1.65 lakh votes across Salem constituency’s assembly segments when it contested alone in 2016 assembly elections, which is almost 40000 votes more than what it managed to poll in 2024.

Again, if one looks at the results in Kallakurichi, it is clear that it was a direct contest between DMK and the AIADMK with PMK coming in fourth behind Naam Tamilar Katchi which secured 73652. If 2016 assembly elections are to be taken for context, it had secured 1.58 lakh votes across assembly segments falling under the Kallakurichi lok sabha constituency. Meanwhile, the party managed to retain most of its core vote bank in Dharmapuri, Arani, Cuddalore and Arakkonam.