TN Elections

Tamil Nadu Elections 2021

Okay, the elections are on fire. I was one of those people who doesn’t care or quite interested in politics. But we can’t turn a blind eye on them ever, right? So I’ve looked into some information about the parties and I am here to share it with you.

Origin of politics in Tamil Nadu

The Indian National Congress was the ruling party of Tamil Nadu for the first twenty years after independence, until a Dravidian party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) swept the elections. There were not such huge improvements in TN with the chief ministers who served before and after independence before Kamaraj but that was changed after Kamaraj who was known as Kingmaker became the chief minister in 1954. He shaped Tamil Nadu for two good tenures (1954-57, 1957-62) and held the position for the third time (1962-63) but he lasted just for a year as he thought of re-vitalization of the Congress. After him, Bhaktavatsalam got into power and is, to date, the last Chief Minister of Madras from the Indian National Congress.

Before we enter into the era of DMK and AIADMK, the two major parties in Tamil Nadu, Let’s take a short look at how these parties are formed.

There was an earlier party set by South Indian Welfare Association called Justice Party which was renamed as Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam by EV Ramasamy. They entered politics in 1956. The party suffered from inside conflicts and suffered a huge blow when Periyar married Maniyammai who was more than 40 years younger than him. Some people from the party including CN Annadurai split up and formed the party called Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam.

CN Annadurai became the chief minister after DMK won the elections in 1967 and He also became the first chief minister of Tamil Nadu to die in office on 3 February 1969.

Karunanidhi succeeded him.

MG Ramachandran known as MGR split from DMK and formed AIADMK who soon became the actor turned chief minister(1977-1987). After his death, his wife Janaki Raman led the party which was regarded as the shortest period of Chief minister till now in Tamil Nadu. J Jayalalitha soon took over the power by winning elections.

Since then these two parties were the ones who held power in our state. They won elections in a manner of each holding power for 5 years like taking their turn after turn. No two parties could win elections consequently twice except last time where AIADMK held power for over 10 years.

This election marks significance as J. Jayalalitha and Karunanithi both honorable chief ministers of the powerful parties died one after another in 2016 and 2018 respectively.

Presently, the son of late chief minister Karunanithi, Stalin is the president of the DMK political party, and Edapadi Palanisamy the honorable chief minister after Jayalalitha holds the position of president of AIADMK party.

The political campaigns of these two political campaigns are all around the media. The other parties are also giving their fight in this elections like Makkal Needhi Maiyam, Naam Tamilar Katchi, TMC, DMDK, etc.,

We have to wait and see how the election will turn out.

It’s our responsibility to vote as a citizen and it’s our right to speak up. Yes I know there are criticisms like hate and loss of hope towards parties but still, if we want changes, we want to change. In my opinion, we can’t change everything but we can weigh out the present options and choose the best among them.

Hope this provides an insight into how parties in Tamil Nadu worked earlier. Thank you for reading and share your comments. I’m learning about politics recently if I had left out anything or you like to add some points to this post please let me know.