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Political Scene in Tamil Nadu: Seat Tally and Realignment

Friday, May 8, 2026
5 min read
Political Scene in Tamil Nadu: Seat Tally and Realignment

The whole political scene in Tamil Nadu is just a numbers game right now. It’s high stakes.

Actor-politician Vijay and his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam , or TVK , are getting dangerously close to that magic number of 118 seats .

This whole thing got messy because of a dramatic fallout inside the INDIA bloc .


But things shifted fast on Thursday. The Congress , five seats, and the Left parties CPI and CPI(M) , each with two seats—they broke ranks with the DMK . A kind of secular realignment happened there.

Now Vijay’s tally jumps to 117 . That’s just one seat short of a formal majority. Some of the calculations, including the IUML , put him right on that razor's edge.

That makes the VCK’s two seats suddenly huge. It’s got disproportionate weight now.

If Thol. Thirumavalavan moves his legislators over to the TVK camp , Vijay crosses 118 easily. That would end the week-long deadlock at Lok Bhavan . It would force Governor Rajendra Arlekar’s hand.

Arlekar, the Governor, has already twice turned down Vijay’s invitation to form the government. He insists on a physical "list of 118" signatures.

The VCK’s decision is everything here. It’s the only thing standing between a TVK-led cabinet and maybe some kind of President’s Rule recommendation.

The party itself is stuck in a massive ideological knot. For years, the VCK was supposed to be part of that big DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance .

But the lure of power-sharing—that long-standing demand from Thirumavalavan for his community—that’s a powerful pull. Reports say Vijay personally reached out to the VCK chief late Thursday night. He offered a big role in whatever new administrative setup might happen.

The VCK is hesitating. Their whole platform is built on being "anti-Sanatana."

The Congress justified their switch as trying to keep "communal forces" like the BJP out of the assembly. But the VCK worries about what their base will actually think. An alliance with a brand-new party, one whose ideological depth is still being tested.

The question hanging over the VCK high command meeting today isn’t just about stability anymore. It’s about the old guard.

If the VCK joins the TVK , it means the end of the " Dravidian Duopoly ." Not just in the voting, but in who actually controls the corridors of power.

Written by Gree News Team — Senior Editorial Board

Gree News Team covers international news and global affairs at Gree News. Our collective of senior editors is dedicated to providing independent, accurate, and responsible journalism for a global audience.

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