Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Tamil Nadu’s elections are fought on delivery—ideology appears only when needed

Electoral competition now appears dominated by welfare delivery and governance metrics, but ideology has not disappeared in Tamil Nadu. Instead, it has become strategic.

In Tamil Nadu today, elections are fought through welfare numbers, but at critical moments, they are not. As the state approaches the 2026 assembly election, political competition is now largely framed less through ideological argument and more through measurable delivery: how many beneficiaries, how much financial assistance, how efficiently schemes are implemented. 

Yet at critical moments, this language shifts abruptly, and politics returns to questions of identity, autonomy and power.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) cast the election as a contest between Delhi and Tamil Nadu by invoking the questions of federal autonomy and linguistic identity. Disputes over NEET, confrontations between the state government and the Governor, and tensions over fiscal devolution have all been mobilised to revive a recognisable ideological vocabulary. At the same time, the DMK is casting its “Dravidian model” as an alternative to the “Gujarat model” of development.

This coexistence defines the present moment, and it shapes how elections are fought. Tamil Nadu is not moving beyond ideology; it is becoming a political system in which welfare delivery is continuous, with ideology activated when required.

From ideological movement to governing system

Dravidian politics began explicitly as an ideological project. Under EV Ramasamy, famously known as Periyar, it directly challenged the caste hierarchy, Brahminical dominance, and cultural hegemony. This ideological clarity carried into early electoral politics with the establishment of the Dravida Kazhagam and later by the DMK (established by Anna Durai). Under the leadership of Periyar and CN Annadurai, the demand for a separate Dravida Nadu represented a radical rethinking of sovereignty. But after the Sino-Indian War, the Dravidian movement recalibrated its goals towards federal autonomy.

After 1967, when DMK came into power, the Dravidian movement started becoming institutionalised. Welfare, reservations and........

© ThePrint