After its big win in Bihar, the BJP is likely to push harder in Tamil Nadu, where the DMK government and the uneasy BJP-AIADMK alliance are preparing for a tense election filled with seat-sharing fights, changing alliances, and the unpredictable entry of Vijay's TVK party, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
After a heart-warming victory in Bihar, the question is if a more confident and energetic Bharatiya Janata Party ruling the Centre would direct the new-found confidence at other poll-bound states like Tamil Nadu?
In his early 'victory speech' on Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that he would now demolish the ruling Trinamool Congress and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in next year's assembly polls in Bengal, but no one is sure that the BJP would spare DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu and CPI-M-headed Kerala, where too elections are due at the same time, alongside those in Assam and Puducherry.
The BJP cadre morale was down but not out after the relatively poor showing in last year's Lok Sabha elections. Now, Bihar in the Hindi heartland has decisively proved otherwise.
Hence BJP leaders in TN expect a similar assault on the ruling DMK on the official side and local alliance leader AIADMK in seat-sharing talks.
On the face of it, the DMK is not worried. Historically and otherwise, their leaders have not surrendered to raid-linked pressures by the ruling party at the Centre.
In the Emergency era, its present-day Congress ally was ruling at the Centre, and even present-day Chief Minister M K Stalin was not spared.
The DMK does not hold any grudges, yes, but party men also point out how in recent times, then minister Senthil Balaji stayed in prison for 400 days without bail, but did not crumble under the psychological pressure.
Hence, the BJP's focus will be increasingly on the AIADMK ally, whose leader Edappadi K Palaniswami has not exactly acknowledged the combined status in public.
In the months since Union Home Minister and chief BJP strategist Amit Shah forced down an unpalatable alliance-revival in April, EPS' one-man campaign, already across 175 of 243 assembly constituencies, targeted the DMK but did not highlight the alliance and the BJP's role.
Even where EPS makes pro-BJP statements as on the Election Commission's controversial SIR process, it reads less involved and convincing.
For the state BJP, which had held back for the Bihar polls to pass, EPS cannot continue to play his double-game.
They expect Shah, when he turns his attention back to the state, will 'fix' EPS on alliance-status and seat-sharing, the latter in particular.
Before Bihar began dominating the BJP's national consciousness, its party leaders in Tamil Nadu were freely talking about a near-half share for the party and its non-AIADMK partners within the larger alliance -- that too constituencies of its choice.
The hope then was for Shah to bring back the likes of sacked AIADMK leaders like three-time chief minister O Panneerselvam and breakaway AMMK founder T T V Dhinakaran.
In 2024, both were allies of the BJP in the NDA after EPS had slashed ties, fearing further erosion of AIADMK vote-share.
It was attributed to the BJP's Hindutva agenda over-shadowing the BJP's past performance in the government, since M G Ramachandran founded the party in 1972.
Of the two, OPS has maintained stoic silence on returning to the NDA fold, but threw a hint or two that the rival DMK option was still open.
TTV, on the other hand, refuses to work for EPS' chief ministerial candidature. It could become a difficult job for Amit Shah, but the problem is not insurmountable.
Shah's real problem -- or, whoever takes over from him as the BJP's strategist in Tamil Nadu, if he is going to focus more on West Bengal -- is to 'fix' actor-politician Vijay's infant TVK.
The TVK has already reiterated its decision to go it alone in the assembly polls with Vijay as its chief ministerial candidate.
Of course, the special general body meeting, as is wont in other regional parties, authorised Vijay, as the founder and president, to take whatever alliance decision that was required.
Does the BJP want the TVK in the AIADMK-led BJP-NDA combine, to strengthen what still blatantly is said to be 'weak' compared to the 'solid' DMK alliance from 2019, 2021 and 2024?
Or, does it want the TVK to go it alone, cutting into the DMK's vote-share among the youth, particularly Vijay's female fans, who otherwise have benefited immensely from Stalin's welfare measures?
Opinion is divided on this score, not only in the BJP but also in the AIADMK, independent of the other's views.
Senior leaders in both parties -- and also the DMK -- are unwilling to buy the media-marketed general perception that the TVK, for an infant party facing its maiden election, will garner 25 per cent or more of the votes.
Now, after the Bihar polls, they point out how one-time psephologist par excellence Prasant Kishor's predictions of Vijay cornering 18 per cent vote-share had lost its value after his Jan Suraaj Party's failure in his native state, Bihar.
EPS has been suitably embarrassed after the TVK's assertion of Vijay's chief ministerial ambitions, especially after his openly hinting at the possibility of a two-party combine (excluding the BJP?), in the weeks after the Karur stampede, where the infant party was at the receiving end over the 41 deaths.
But there is clear assessment that the AIADMK will require allies even to be seen as having a fighting chance -- and it has to be much more than the BJP, even if they begin working together.
Indications are that grassroots-level AIADMK cadres, as always, are willing to work with whichever ally the leadership chooses.
The problem centres on EPS' personal and personalised strategy, focussed exclusively on his chief ministerial ambitions.
Given the AIADMK's lowest-ever 20 per cent vote-share in last yeaR's Lok Sabha polls, it needs to retain those votes and also bring in another 15 to 20 per cent in a four-cornered contest, which includes the TVK and another actor-politician Seeman's NTK.
The latter polled a respectable eight per cent vote-share last year, without an ally, and without a prime ministerial candidate.
The TVK's electoral strength is yet to be proven, for any established political party to hold serious alliance negotiations on the party's terms.
Yes, the NDA did poll a respectable 18.5 per cent vote-share in the Lok Sabha polls, but a section of the national media mischievously put it down to the BJP's exclusive account.
Though the combination was different, it was the same as the NDA's; vote-share in 2014.
However, the BJP's 2.86 per cent yield in the intervening 2016 assembly elections has to be considered as the party's committed vote-share -- as has always been in the past so many decades.
This leaves the BJP and the AIADMK, too, with a double whammy, jointly and severally.
If the AIADMK argues that the BJP's vote-share is less than three per cent, where is it going to get the 12 to 15 per cent for EPS to recapture the gaddi?
Likewise, if the BJP claims it has 18.5 per cent vote-share or, say, 11.5 per cent, as calculated by some party-friendly analysts since 2024, is it not cheating itself by demanding more seats than it can win, even with whole-hearted AIADMK support?
The reality is close to 15 per cent of the NDA's 18.5 per cent last year came from the allies, of whom OPS and TTK are now out.
Even if OPS and/or TTV are cajoled or threatened to come back, their half-hearted support to the BJP in their common southern Mukkulathore community stronghold will not be available to EPS.
In EPS' western region, where the BJP also has a stronghold, numbers still may not add up, if former BJP state chief K Annamalai and recently-sacked AIADMK veteran K A Sengottaiyan are not appropriately re-inducted, for them, too, to collectively work for the NDA's victory.
Both belong to the dominant Vellalar Gounder community, like EPS. The latter's choice for CM ultimately after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's death in December 2016 is not to the liking of the southern Mukkulathore, who embarrassed the AIADMK enough by causing the loss of security deposit in an unprecedented seven seats.
It is another matter that the BJP, too, lost the security deposit in 11 of 39 seats. The NDA's other partners too lost the deposit in most seats they contested --- AMMK (1), DMDK (2), PMK (6) and TMC (3).
The shadow of such a defeat still hangs over both the AIADMK and the BJP-NDA.
This has also enthused the rival DMK leader of the Congress-inclusive INDIA combo enough. But there is no justification for the same, however.
DMK supporters on social media add up figures from the past to argue that the alliance already is sitting on a comfortable 45-plus per cent vote-share.
After the poor showing in Bihar, they claim that the Congress partner has lost its perceived bargaining capacity. It's only half true.
However, after the Bihar results, Stalin congratulated counterpart Nitish Kumar, and also Opposition RJD boss and leader of the Mahagadhbandhan Tejashwi Yadav, the latter for his hard work.
But he left out the Congress partner in the alliance, whose dilly-dallying and deliberate delaying tactic at seat-sharing, it is said, was a major contributory factor for their collective defeat.
It was a hidden message after over the past weeks, a section of Tamil nadu's Congress leaders began demanding a higher number of seats and power-sharing in the DMK combine.
The Congress high command did nothing about it, as rumours (as always) also claimed that some party leaders, including strategists from Delhi, had met with TVK leaders and counterparts.
While in the state recently, AICC in-charge for the TN unit, Girish Chodankar, went as far as to declare that the party could claim up to 117 seats -- half the total of 234, and would settle for 50.
This was double the 25 seats that the Congress obtained in 2021, of which it won 18 with the DMK's cadre work.
In the past, the Congress won only eight out of 41 in 2016 and five out of 63 in 2011, which election was mired in the 2G scam.
The late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi blamed the Congress' poor conversion record for the alliance losing both elections to the AIADMK rival, under the more charismatic Jayalalithaa, now no more.
There was some truth in it, especially in 2016, when the vote-share gap between the two combines was just one per cent -- 40.88 and 39.85 per cent, against a seat-share tally of 136 and 98.
It was still the highest seat-share for the losing partner in assembly elections in the state.
The Congress' stand-alone vote-share dates back to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when the figure stood at 4.37 per cent (no seats).
This is at the centre of the DMK cadre argument against allotting an unreasonably high number of seats to the Congress ally, for them (alone) to work and make them win (with little or no cooperation from the candidate, either).
It may be factual, but that does not diminish the Congress' role in the DMK alliance. Instead, the unverifiable vote-contribution of the Congress, and the 'secular image' that it brings to the DMK combine, when the fight is against the Hindutva BJP at the Centre, which have become the party's bargaining chip.
Added to that the Congress, some insiders believe, can point to the propagated the TVK's 'secular image' and unproven perceptions of Vijay's voter-charisma, especially among the young and women voters, is an argument that the DMK cannot ignore easily without risking the future.
In reality, while the DMK may not yield to any threats or unrealistic demands from the Congress, the Stalin leadership will not ignore the ally, out-of-turn, either.
The effort thus will be for the DMK to contain the Congress seat-share to 25 from the previous poll of 2021 while the partner would also want that as the barest minimum, and actually want more.
In his X post, in which he congratulated Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav, Stalin also broadly hinted at the DMK's existing allies to 'behave' if they are not to repeat Bihar in Tamil Nadu.
Taking it positively and responding immediately, state Congress president K Selvaperunthagai declared without any nuances that the party would still stick to the DMK alliance, come what may.
Whether it is the Congress in the DMK alliance or the BJP in the AIADMK combine, they need to remember a dated episode, which however is not outdated.
Desperate to oust the MGR-led AIADMK, the DMK shared more than half the seats with the Congress, way back in 1980 -- 114 out of 234, retaining a lower 112, with another six going to the common Muslim League partner.
Yet, in their over-anxiety to ensure lesser dependence on the Congress ally, DMK cadres cross-worked and possibly cross-worked in those constituencies.
The Congress, which still possibly commanded a 25-per cent vote-share, did likewise, only to ensure the DMK's greater dependence on them -- and in a coalition dispensation.
The results gave the AIADMK-plus 162 seats (48.92 per cent vote-share) and the DMK-Congress combine's 69 seats (44.43 per cent).
This put paid to the perception that MGR won because of the 'sympathy wave' caused by his appeal for 'justice' after the post-Janata Party Indira Gandhi regime had dismissed his government with eight others.
Today, the 'undecided' swing voters' numbers may have increased to 30-35 per cent, where it has been since the mid-nineties. That is a factor no poll strategist or psephologist seems to count.
That is a factor that the TVK's Vijay will have to look at, but then, he would require strategists who know the business and are honest, and a second-level team that knows its work.
Together, a better team could have avoided the Karur stampede. Together, they could have avoided the current embarrassment of the copy of the TVK's appeal to the Election Commission of India, landing on the table of the state Election Commission (in charge of panchayat polls), and not that of the state electoral officer, where it belonged.
It is going to be tougher for the infant TVK, with an insulated leader and inexperienced commander, first during the ongoing SIR process, and then even in the filling up of nominations for the assembly polls, which requires a different kind of expertise and experience -- something they don't teach you in Harvard!
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff