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The 2021 assembly election outcome returned to the predictable pattern of one the two major parties DMK and ADMK exchanging power every 5 years. The 2016 election was an anomaly in which, ADMK for the first time in 32 years and six assembly cycles, retained power, albeit tenuously. The reasons for the aberration was less to do with ADMK’s stellar performance, than to do with DMK’s failure to forge a winning coalition as our analysis pointed out.
This election also answered some important questions about the future of DMK and ADMK, and indeed the future of the enduring bi-polar nature of Tamil Nadu politics. Both the parties contesting their first assembly elections since the deaths of their leaders M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalitha had questions around leadership, retention of core base and an unremitting representation of their former selves.
While the consolidation of M K Stalin as the party supremo and the continuation of DMK as a single unified party was no surprise, Edappadi Palaniswamy’s performance as the ADMK’s leader was the most impressive. Not only did he have to contend with the anti-incumbency factor, he was embroiled in a long-drawn leadership shadow war with former deputy chief minister O. Paneerselvam and factions associated with Jayalalithaa’s confidante V.K. Sasikala.
Additionally there was a real danger from the ADMK splinter party led by V.K. Sasikala’s nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran’s AMMK (Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam). AMMK drew a blank and polled a mere 2.5% percentage votes suggesting ADMK did not suffer an erosion to its vote bank. Said a political observer, “Edappadi Palaniswami performed better than Jayalalithaa in her worst election year. In 2006, the AIADMK under Jayalalithaa secured 61 seats, and after ten years in power, Palaniswami had been able to bag 66 seats.” [1]
A key take away from a detailed analysis of the results indicate that while ADMK may have lost the election due to a combination of factors such anti-incumbency, party disunity, and a weaker coalition, they did not lose by a lot, while DMK’s victory is underwhelming.
The overall turnout was 72.81 per cent in this election, 2% less than the 2016 edition. This could be due to Covid, but there were more high-turnout constituencies in 2021 than in 2016. In 158 constituencies where voter turnout was over 75 per cent, the DMK alliance won 100 seats, while the ADMK alliance managed to win 58. In 99 constituencies that saw voters turning out in excess of 80 per cent, the DMK alliance won 61 of those seats. The remaining 38 went to the ADMK. The DMK+ won close to twice as many seats as the ADMK+ in high turnout constituencies indicating a small anti-incumbency effect against the ADMK.
The DMK-led coalition won 159 out of the 234 assembly constituencies while the ADMK front won 75 of them. DMK individually contested 188 seats and won 133 of them for a vote share of 37.7%, up from 31.4% from 178 constituencies (won in 89) it contested in 2016. The ADMK on the other hand individually contested in 191 seats, winning 66 of them for a vote share of 33.3%, which was down from 40.8% from 234 (won in 136) it contested in 2016.
In terms of the ‘contested vote share’, DMK polled 45.5% in 188 seats, while the ADMK polled 40.5% in 191 seats. In 2016, DMK polled 41.1% and ADMK polled 40.8%, again indicating that while DMK marginally did improve its contested vote share, ADMK's remain unchanged.
NOTA accounted for 0.75%, or 345591 of the total votes polled in the State. This is down from 1.3 per cent, or 561244 votes polled in the 2016 elections. In 13 constituencies the number of NOTA votes exceeded the margin of victory, also down from 25 constituencies in 2016. NOTA was introduced for the first time in the 2016 assembly elections, and it remains to be seen if the novelty of NOTA is wearing off or the electorate is becoming less dissatified with the available pool of candidates.
The graph below plots the victory margins in comparison with the votes polled by NTK, MNM and AMMK, the 3 parties that combined to poll 11.6% of the total votes.
Scroll right to see the full chart
A record 413 women contested in this election with just 12 winning resulting in lowest women respresentation in the 2021 Assembly in 25 years. This is down from 21 who represented the 2016 Assembly and one of the lowest ratio of women MLAs in the country at the moment. The DMK fielded 11 women (5.9%) against 17 for the ADMK (8.9%). Of the 12 women who were elected, six were from the DMK, three from the AIADMK, two from the BJP and 1 one from the Congress.
We have plotted the performance of women candidates in two maps. The map of the left shows the aggregate votes obtained by all women candidates in a constituency as a percentage of total votes polled in that constituency. The map on the right shows the victory margins (in purple) of the women candidates who won in 12 of the constituencies, and the the loss margins (in blue) of the women candidates who lost in the rest of the constituencies. The orange coloured constituencies did not have any women candidate.
Content and Design: Venkatesh Rajamanickam
Programming: Varsha Venkatesh
Data Source: Election Commission of India
Code template/components: D3.js, Bootstrap, and Data{Meet}
Photo: PTI
Reference: [1] The Wire
Source Code: Github Repo
Contact: Information Design Lab IDC IIT Bombay
Published on: 07 October 2021