On voting day in Chennai on April 23rd, at the Justice Basheer Ahmed College polling booth, I jostled through the crowds to ask MK Stalin for his message to voters. He replied, "Tamil Nadu will win." When I shot back, "What does that mean?" he simply said, "It's understood."
This was the DMK's narrative: Tamil Nadu is the DMK, and the DMK is Tamil Nadu. It is strikingly similar to the BJP's claim that Bharat is them and they are Bharat.
The claim that the DMK is the sole custodian of Tamil pride, capable of protecting it from Hindutva, has been the party's primary electoral plank through the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls, as well as the 2021 and 2026 Assembly elections. So, when Stalin said "Tamil Nadu will win," the subtext was that the DMK would win. However, the "Vijay frenzy" allowed the electorate to see through that conflation.
Yes, the DMK fought against Hindi imposition. Yes, its ideology has shaped - and continues to shape - Tamil Nadu's political journey. But in this election, the electorate looked past the ideological arguments and "Tamil pride" rhetoric to focus on corruption and nepotism.
In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee and the TMC similarly built their platform on an "insider versus outsider" narrative, positioning the party as the guardian of Bengali culture. While the linguistic face-off with Hindi is not as relevant as it is in Tamil Nadu, the projection in Bengal was more cultural. Portraying the BJP as a threat to Bengali identity - suggesting they would ban fish and meat - was a key tactic. Again, this was rejected by the voters.
While there is little in common between the Bengal election saga (where Sandeshkhali and other issues were contentious) and the events in Tamil Nadu, the defeats of the DMK and the TMC carry significant national consequences. It is a body blow to the national opposition, as these were its most belligerent and powerful regional players.
Together, the DMK and TMC hold 59 MPs (22 in the Lok Sabha and eight in the Rajya Sabha for the DMK, and 29 and 13, in the respective houses, for the TMC). Defeated on their home turf with their main campaign planks neutralised, the two parties must now recalibrate. While both remain staunchly anti-BJP, how they navigate Delhi politics without power in their respective states will be a study in restraint.
The INDIA bloc is over, leaving a weaker, more fragmented opposition in Parliament. The Congress has undergone a bitter divorce from the DMK and is now aligned with the TVK, which currently has no parliamentary presence. These results will inevitably make it easier for the BJP to navigate a Parliament where it has recently faced tough moments due to the lack of an absolute majority, something it enjoyed in 2014 and 2019.
The results demonstrate that identity politics - whether regional or national, communal or secular - follows the law of unpredictable returns. It may work in one cycle, but it is not a perennial guarantee. This applies equally to the BJP's use of Hindu-Bharatiya identity and the regional or linguistic identities leveraged by state forces.
The moment a credible alternative emerges and anti-incumbency crosses a certain threshold, the identity-based narrative is discarded. The core factor here is the credibility of that alternative.
In Tamil Nadu, the public perceived Vijay to be as "Tamil" as the DMK. His star charisma was tantalising. Meanwhile, the traditional opponent, the AIADMK, lacked its former charm and was hampered by its alliance with the BJP. Vijay stood his ground and did not buckle under pressure; this created a fascinating concoction that overcame the DMK's propaganda machinery.
In Bengal, harsh economic realities took center stage. Fifteen years of TMC rule had failed to produce dramatic change. While a section of the state remained loyal to Mamata, the rest moved past the "outsider" narrative. The BJP emerged as the only viable alternative, allowing anti-incumbency to consolidate in their favor.
Following these results, the "Center versus States" and "Federalism under threat" narratives will likely be confined to Congress-ruled states. Although the TVK is part of an alliance, the precarious numbers and wafer-thin majority for the coalition in Tamil Nadu mean Vijay must be circumspect. Given that the TVK's pitch is more anti-DMK than anti-BJP, their navigation of Centre-State issues will be worth watching.
Ultimately, the regional identity narrative has taken an electoral beating. The Center-State power dynamic has tilted back toward New Delhi, and the BJP now holds more leverage in Parliament than it did before the polls.
(The author is Executive Editor, NDTV)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
