Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections 2026 | The divorce is final: Why Congress walked out on Stalin for Vijay

Chennai: DMK and Congress alliance has been on the rocks for the past few months, making divorce between the two inevitable. The question was not “if” but “when.”

The relationship between the two parties – they have been in an alliance since 2004 barring for three years between 2013 and 2016 – turned bitter in late 2025 after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spoke to Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief C Joseph Vijay to express his condolences for the death of 41 people in a stampede in Karur on September 27.

Rahul Gandhi and Vijay’s friendship goes a long way; they first met in 2009 and have remained in touch ever since. Both the Congress and TVK believe leveraging this relationship will help both parties in the long run. While the Congress aims to revive in Tamil Nadu, Vijay will gain national attention, allowing his TVK to play a role in national politics.

The fact that Rahul Gandhi refused to share the dais with DMK President M K Stalin, whom he once described as his “elder brother”, during this elections was a strong hint that their ties were headed towards a breaking point.

Walking out of the DMK alliance has its own negatives for the Congress. It raises questions over the future of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, reliability of Congress among allies, and its floor strategy in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha against the BJP-led Union Government.

DMK, which has 22 MPs, was an integral part of the bloc’s floor strategy, and the Dravidian party is likely to draft its strategy vis-à-vis national politics very soon without compromising on its anti-BJP stand. It is unlikely to be in the same alliance that includes TVK.

The immediate benefit the Congress will gain from allying with TVK is that the party will taste power in Tamil Nadu by joining a ministry for the first time since it was thrown out of power by the then-fledgling DMK in 1967.

The party came within sniffing distance of power in 2006 when the DMK didn’t win enough seats to form a government alone, but the High Command decided to support the DMK unconditionally from the outside.

Congress wanted to walk away from the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) and ally with TVK before the assembly elections, but senior leaders stonewalled the move despite being backed by Rahul Gandhi.

Their argument was that this was the “right time” for the Congress to emerge from the shadows of Dravidian parties and grow in Tamil Nadu alongside Vijay, who publicly announced that he would share power with alliance partners.

This faction within the Congress was upset with the DMK over its ‘big brother’ attitude and for not allowing the Congress to function independently.

Moreover, they sensed that the DMK was facing “anti-incumbency” and believed that jumping ship to TVK would help them win seats and join the ministry.

Though this group failed to convince the High Command before the elections, they entered hyper-active mode immediately after the results were announced, ensuring that the Congress walked out of the DMK alliance to join TVK.

Congress sees a “bright future” in Tamil Nadu through its alliance with TVK, which will continue into the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.

“We will get a sizable number of seats in the local body elections which will help us get to the roots yet again. We believe we have space to grow and TVK will allow that,” a senior Congress leader told DH.

Another leader said many cadres and district-level functionaries were feeling “suffocated” in the DMK alliance because they were unable to enjoy the benefits of power.

“The DMK did not give prominence to our people, even at the taluk and district levels. We were not even considered for posts such as temple trustees. We remained in the alliance only because we had no choice,” the second leader added.

Prof. Ramu Manivannan, former head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Madras, told DH that the development was good for both parties.

“It was an alliance without any spirit or purpose. Both have been thinking that they have simply been carrying each other for some time. I would say the Congress has shown its true character by waiting for the right time to break away and gain access,” he added.