How Regional Dynamics Could Trump National Narratives This Time

The BJP cannot count on a walkover. Powerful regional players will have pivotal roles in determining the course of the election and demand a share of the spoils

- Raj Chengappa

History has a strange habit of repeating itself in Indian elections. Though no one can predict with accuracy when it will do so. In 1996, the Congress-led government of P.V. Narasimha Rao was looking for a second term. But Rao made a fatal mistake by aligning in Tamil Nadu with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (AIADMK), headed by the late J. Jayalalithaa, despite stiff opposition from the state Congress unit which wanted a tie-up with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK). It led to a split in the party, with G.K. Moopanar, the state Congress leader, forming a new party and aligning with the M. Karunanidhi-led DMK and the Communist Party of India. The newly-formed alliance went on to sweep all 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state. At the national level, the Congress party was reduced to 140 seats—21 short of the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. If the Congress had allied with the DMK, its tally could have crossed 161 making it the single- largest party and the President of India would have invited Rao rather than Vajpayee to form a coalition government. Had that happened, a different history would have been scripted.

Cut to 2019 and there is a sense of déjà vu about political alliances in Tamil Nadu and the role the state could play at the national level. This time, the BJP, led by Narendra Modi, has entered into a seat-sharing alliance with the AIADMK whose charismatic leader, Jayalalithaa, passed away two years ago. The AIADMK has already suffered a split, with T.T.V. Dhinakaran, the nephew of Jayalalithaa’s close confidante Sasikala, breaking away and forming a new party, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), that could play a spoiler for the ruling party in the state. Meanwhile, the Congress has allied with the DMK and there is a right royal battle on for supremacy.