A Fractured Verdict and Dravidian Dominance

Tamil Nadu's Dravidian Parties: A Timeline of Upheaval

With discomfort in the AIADMK showing no signs of subsiding, after former School Education Minister and veteran leader K.A. Sengottaiyan was divested of party posts following his call for the return of estranged leaders, it is a timely moment to revisit some of the most significant uprisings within Tamil Nadu’s two major Dravidian parties.

Following a fractured verdict in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and an upheaval of the Dravidian dominance in the State, one Dravidian major - the AIADMK is facing rebellion within its ranks. Here is a timeline of events: Following a fractured verdict in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and an upheaval of the Dravidian dominance in the State, one Dravidian major AIADMK is facing a rebellion within its ranks. Here is a timeline of events. Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly’s new Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar, a veteran politician, in an interview with The Hindu, assured that the floor test, where Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has to establish his majority, will be smooth and exceed expectations. He acknowledged having received letters from two rival AIADMK groups. Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar assures a smooth floor test for Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay amid rival AIADMK factions. Ahead of Wednesday’s (May 13, 2026) floor test in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay on Tuesday (May 12, 2026) called on rebel AIADMK leaders led by former Ministers S.P. Velumani and C.Ve.

RSS Expansion in West Bengal

In the BJP’s breakthrough win in West Bengal, a major factor was the quieter, more methodical approach of the RSS, whose efforts in the state for over a decade, and the last two years in particular, laid the foundation of the victory. Though Hindu identity politics has a century-long history in Bengal, the RSS and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the precursor to the BJP, failed to establish its presence in the state after Independence. The BJS won nine Assembly seats and a 12.57% vote share in the 1951 election, but it fell off the electoral map afterwards. The long drought came to an end only in 2014, when the BJP won its first Assembly seat in a bypoll. Since then, it has been a steady climb to power — three in 2016, 77 in 2021, and 207 seats in this election. The turning point in electoral terms came in 2021 as it became apparent to the Sangh that the battle against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) could be won, senior RSS functionaries said. In the last two years, the Sangh mobilised 2,000 full-time workers from other states — drawn from its cadre and that of the party — to fill the gaps in the BJP’s grassroots machinery. These workers — all of whose expenses were taken care of by the party — were given a single-point agenda: operate at the hyper-local level, in clusters of villages.

Challenges on the Ground

The TMC-dominated local bodies