New Delhi’s ruling establishment is testing whether the collapse of the DMK-Congress partnership in Tamil Nadu can be converted into issue-based cooperation in Parliament, where every bloc of regional votes matters on constitutional amendments, federal questions and the next presidential election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s calculation rests on a sharp change in Tamil Nadu politics after the 2026 Assembly election. Actor-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam emerged as the largest party with 108 seats in the 234-member House, while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam fell to 59 and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam finished with 47. The Indian National Congress, which had fought alongside the DMK for years, won five seats and then chose to support the TVK-led government, deepening the rupture with M K Stalin’s party.
The immediate prize for the BJP is not a formal alliance with the DMK, which would be politically difficult for both sides, but a working arrangement on selected national issues. The DMK has 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha, a number large enough to influence high-stakes votes when the ruling coalition seeks a wider parliamentary margin. BJP strategists are looking at models used earlier with regional parties that stayed outside the National Democratic Alliance but backed the Centre on specific legislation or institutional votes.
The DMK’s break with the Congress has moved beyond state-level anger. The party has sought separate seating from Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha, signalling that the electoral alliance in Tamil Nadu has turned into a parliamentary separation as well. DMK leaders have accused the Congress of betrayal after it moved towards Vijay’s TVK, while Congress functionaries have defended the decision as necessary to keep the BJP and its allies away from power in Tamil Nadu.
The parliamentary arithmetic explains why the BJP is watching closely. Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority of members present and voting, in addition to a majority of the total membership of the House concerned. During a vote linked to delimitation, the ruling side fell short of the required threshold despite commanding a comfortable working majority. The DMK’s 22 Lok Sabha MPs voted with the opposition then, but even a shift to abstention or issue-based support in future could alter the balance.
The 2027 presidential election adds another layer to the calculation. The electoral college combines MPs and MLAs, making state-level shifts crucial. Tamil Nadu’s changed Assembly composition weakens the DMK’s influence in that college, but the party’s parliamentary strength still gives it bargaining value in Delhi. For a BJP leadership seeking to project opposition disarray, any visible parliamentary understanding with the DMK would carry political significance beyond the numbers.
Substantial obstacles remain. The DMK built much of its 2026 campaign around opposition to the Centre’s delimitation plans, arguing that population-based redistribution of seats could reduce the relative voice of southern states that had performed better on population control. That position is deeply tied to the party’s federal identity and cannot be diluted without political cost. The party has also clashed repeatedly with the BJP over language, social justice, secularism and remarks by Udhayanidhi Stalin on Sanatan Dharma.
The BJP’s Tamil Nadu ally problem has also shaped its thinking. The AIADMK’s 47-seat performance kept it relevant but did not restore the dominance it once held. Internal strains within the AIADMK and the arrival of TVK as the new force in the state have pushed the BJP to reassess whether relying on one Dravidian partner is enough. The BJP won only one Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu, underlining both its limits in the state and the need for tactical flexibility in Delhi.
For the DMK, the dilemma is equally complex. Staying in opposition in both Chennai and New Delhi could restrict its access to policy leverage and institutional negotiation. Yet any open proximity to the BJP risks alienating its core voters, allies on the Left, minority constituencies and cadres shaped by decades of anti-BJP politics. Stalin must balance anger against the Congress with the need to preserve the DMK’s ideological profile.
