Ending weeks of speculation and parallel talks across blocs, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) on Thursday formally joined the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA), sealing a tie-up that both sides describe as strategic – and urgent.
DMDK general secretary Premalatha Vijayakanth and party treasurer L K Sudish met Chief Minister M K Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, with Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin and Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi present, formally bringing into the DMK fold a party founded by actor-politician “Captain” Vijayakanth in 2005 – and one that had never previously aligned with the DMK.
In a post on X, Stalin welcomed the DMDK, writing that the “bond of goodwill would continue to contribute to the progress and prosperity of Tamil Nadu”, and framing the moment around Vijayakanth’s personal ties with former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, calling him a “dear friend” who held “unwavering love” for Kalaignar, as Karunanidhi was popularly known.
Premalatha said the decision reflected the wishes of the party’s cadres and recalled that talks for a tie-up go as far back as 2016. “It should have happened when Captain Vijayakanth was alive, but it is happening after a delay of 10 years and we would work to win more than 200 seats,” she said.
The DMK pitch
Behind the symbolism, however, the alliance was driven by deadlines – most immediately, the Rajya Sabha nominations due on March 5. Of the six seats that will fall vacant when tenures end on April 2, the DMK holds four seats. Sources familiar with the negotiations said the DMK conveyed to the DMDK that one seat could be accommodated in this cycle if the party joined before the nomination window. Otherwise, the DMDK would have to wait two more years for the next opening.
The DMDK, sources said, spent the last phase of the negotiation holding parallel discussions – with the Opposition AIADMK, with the BJP-led NDA, and even exploratory conversations with actor-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). The bargaining rose sharply at one point, with the DMDK citing what it claimed it could secure by joining the NDA: a Rajya Sabha seat and even a Union ministerial position.
But the DMK’s counter, according to people briefed on the talks, leaned on examples from recent Tamil Nadu politics that the DMDK leadership found cautionary. Congress MLA and former state women’s wing chief Vijayadharani resigned in 2024 to join the BJP and, as DMK interlocutors pointed out, was not visibly “rewarded” in a way that sustained political weight. R Sarathkumar merged his own party, the All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi, into the BJP in 2024, but did not secure the kind of deliverables that had circulated during the recruitment pitch. Even former state BJP chief K Annamalai, who resigned from the IPS to enter politics, did not end up in a key Delhi post that many in his ecosystem once believed was inevitable.
The argument, as it was presented, was simple: political risk is real, and promises are only meaningful when they are executed. A senior DMK functionary, summarising the pitch, described it as a choice between “the romance of possibility” and the certainty of an agreement in writing – with seats, expenses and a Rajya Sabha berth tied to a timeline. “We told them categorically that we are not like the BJP or AIADMK. We do not change our word,” the leader said.
For the DMDK, the core offer at the final stage, sources said, was one Rajya Sabha seat, eight or nine Assembly seats, and election expenses for each seat – a package designed not merely as an electoral partnership but as an organisational life-support system for a party that has spent a decade outside power. Senior DMK minister E V Velu, a close confidante of Stalin, led the negotiations, according to sources.
The structure also contains a forward-looking component: DMK interlocutors spoke of the local body elections expected by March 2027, where the DMDK, as part of the alliance, could negotiate for smaller but symbolically important positions. A senior DMDK leader who was part of the talks said they could even expect a mayor post in a smaller corporation, a deputy mayor role in a larger one – the kind of posts that build local visibility and sustain a party between Assembly cycles.
For the DMK, the value lies less in the DMDK’s recent electoral performance and more in what party strategists describe as durable residue: Vijayakanth’s followers – a base that, even after repeated defeats, has continued to gather in campaigns out of memory, loyalty and cultural attachment. DMK sources also say the party sees additional value in the DMDK’s association with the Telugu Naidu community. While the community’s overall population is not large, DMK calculations argue that “every seat” in Tamil Nadu could carry 1,000 to 5,000 Naidu votes that can be nudged toward the alliance through DMDK links. Virudhunagar and Coimbatore are seen as significant pockets.
A senior DMK minister described the DMDK as distinct from many other allies because its cadre base is “unique, unorganised and loyal”, and because its door-to-door and street-style campaigning can still summon crowds attached to the late “Captain”. The same minister also argued that Premalatha adds something the alliance’s conventional partners cannot easily offer: a single leader who can campaign across all 234 constituencies as a recognisable, energetic face. “Neither the CPI(M) nor CPI, or Congress, has a Tamil-speaking face like Premalatha,” the minister said, contrasting her statewide mobility with the limits of more institution-bound leaders who may not travel continuously.
A lifeline for DMDK
The DMDK’s need for revival is rooted in its own electoral arc. The party’s high point came in 2011, when it allied with the AIADMK-led front, contested 41 seats and won 29, emerging as the second-largest party in the Assembly. But after 2011, it failed to win a single MLA or MP seat, cycling through alliances: It lost all seats in 2014 with the BJP, lost again in 2016 leading a third front with Left parties, returned to the BJP in 2019, aligned with T T V Dhinakaran’s Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) in 2021, and with the AIADMK again in 2024. Vijayakanth’s death in 2023 intensified the question of survival, even as it strengthened the emotional value of the “Captain” brand.
Vijayakanth’s story was unusual in Tamil Nadu’s cinema-politics overlap. He was the only actor since AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran to translate screen fame into sustained political influence, building a rural vote bank around roles that repeatedly emphasised honesty and anti-corruption. He resonated strongly among economically disadvantaged voters in villages, including Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and remained a cultural figure even as his party’s vote share declined.
His early electoral performances were striking. In the 2006 Assembly polls, the DMDK contested all 234 constituencies, Vijayakanth won one seat and the party secured 8.4% of the vote share; and in the 2011 Assembly it managed 7.9%. By the 2016 and 2021 Assembly polls, the DMDK had dropped down to 2.39% and 0.43%, respectively.
In Vijayakanth’s later years, as his health worsened and his physical presence receded, Premalatha became the party’s principal orator and custodian of his legacy. In 2023, she described her leadership as a “crown of thorns,” and repeatedly emphasised, in alliance negotiations, the need for commitments in writing – “first about a Rajya Sabha seat for the DMDK,” as she put it at one point.