An analysis of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) performance in Tamil Nadu in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections indicates that the party, which has been trying to make inroads in the state, seems to be eating significantly into the votes of its former ally, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), and, in some constituencies, even that of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

The BJP garnered a 11.24% vote share in the state, while its allies – Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Tamil Maanila Congress, and Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) among others – managed 7.04%. The BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came second in 12 out of 39 constituencies in the state. 

In 23 constituencies, the NDA contested under the lotus symbol, finishing second in 10 constituencies. Former AIADMK co-ordinator and ex- Chief Minister O Panneer Selvam contested as an independent candidate in Ramanathapuram this time, under the jackfruit symbol, as an ally of the BJP. The AMMK was represented by the cooker symbol and the PMK by the mango symbol, while the TMC contested under the bicycle symbol.

A look at the vote margins of the BJP candidates says that the party clocked a minimum vote share of 9.05% in Karur (Senthilnathan VV, third place) and a maximum of 35.6% in Kanniyakumari (Pon Radhakrishnan, second place). Of the 23 candidates who contested under BJP’s lotus symbol, 21 got a vote share of about 10%; 16 got above 15%; 9 got above 20%, and 4 got above 30%. The vote share for the BJP’s lotus symbol in 2024 is 19.6%.

While on the surface it may look like the BJP’s vote share increased from a meagre 3.59% in 2019 to 11.24% in 2024, the party contested in only five seats last time around, and in 23 seats (19 directly and 4 more with allies contesting under the lotus symbol) in 2024. Nonetheless, a closer look at the comparative vote shares from both 2019 and 2024 indicates that the BJP is steadily inching forward in the Dravidian stronghold.

In the five constituencies — Kanniyakumari, Sivaganga, Coimbatore, Thoothukudi, and Ramanathapuram — from where the BJP had contested in 2019 and 2024, the party’s vote share remains intact, irrespective of its alliance with the AIADMK.

In Kanniyakumari, the BJP secured 35.2% in 2019. In 2024, their vote share increased by a mere 0.4% (around 6,231 votes more than 2019’s 3,72,572 votes). It may be noted that in 2014, the BJP got 37.64% of the votes, in an election where the Congress, DMK, and AIADMK each had their own candidates. Pon Radhakrishnan, a popular BJP leader, won the seat, propelled by a Modi wave, in 2014. 

The AIADMK, which had 17.79% vote share in Kanniyakumari in 2014, saw its votes diminish to 4.02% in 2024 and finished fourth. The AIADMK’s loss however, did not translate to the BJP’s gain as a portion of these votes seem to have shifted to Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) which finished third with 5.12% votes as against 1.63% votes in 2019.

Similarly, in Coimbatore, where the Tamil Nadu BJP state President K Annamalai contested and lost against DMK’s Ganapathy Rajkumar, the party’s vote share was 32.79%, a 0.79% increase from its vote share in the 2019 election (the 0.79% vote share increase translates to 59,309 increase in votes). In 2014, BJP leader CP Radhakrishnan garnered a vote share of 33.12%. 

While the BJP's vote share remained stable, the DMK-Congress alliance lost 4.27% of its vote share between 2019 and 2024. In 2019, the CPI(M), allied with the DMK and Congress, had 45.66% of the votes, but the INDIA alliance only secured 41.39% in 2024. Meanwhile, Seeman's Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) gained a 1.18% vote share compared to 2019, with a total of 82,657 votes in 2024.

In Sivaganga, the BJP’s vote share reduced to 18.59% in 2024 from 21.8% in 2019 (the vote fell by 37,507). The AIADMK managed 25.76% votes and finished second after the Congress, which secured 42% votes. It must be noted that the AIADMK had a 46.35% vote share in 2014 in this constituency and has since lost almost half of its vote bank. While some of the AIADMK votes have transferred to the BJP,  the biggest gainer is the NTK which polled 15.51% of the votes. 

Congress candidate Karti P Chidambaram, who was also the sitting MP in Sivaganga, won with over 42% of votes, down from 52% in 2019.

In Thoothukudi, NDA constituent Tamil Maanila Congress’s Vijayaseelan SDR got 12.51% votes and finished third. In 2019, BJP’s Tamilisai Soundararajan had finished second after Kanimozhi with a 22% vote share. 

In Ramanathapuram, former AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam, who aligned with the NDA and contested independently, got fewer votes than what the AIADMK-BJP alliance polled in 2019 — it reduced from 32.4% in 2019 to 30.89% in 2024. However, it is important to note that Panneerselavam, a 3 time Chief Minister and the former Co-ordination of the AIADMK was a popular candidate, he also had the support of the dominant Thevar community (classified as Other Backward Classes)  in this southern belt.  The same is true for AMMK founder TTV Dhinakaran, an ex-AIADMK MP,  who was an NDA ally in Theni Lok Sabha constituency this election.

Vote transfers: A closer look

The Tirunelveli Lok Sabha constituency seems to be an example of the transfer of a major chunk of AIADMK’s votes to the BJP. Much like O Panneerselvam and TTV Dhinakaran, Nainar Nagenthiran who contested this seat, is a former AIADMK minister and is also a popular face among the Thevar community which constitutes the dominant population in Tirunelveli.

Between 2019 and 2024, it seems that almost 24% of the AIADMK votes went to the BJP, as did 3% of the DMK-Congress votes. In 2019, the AIADMK had 32.42% votes, but in 2024, the party only managed 8.39%. The BJP meanwhile, got 31.54%. The Congress won the seat this time with 47.06% votes as against 50.27% in 2019. Over 4% of voters who were unaligned with any party in 2019, also seem to have voted for the BJP. The alliance with OPS and TTV Dhinakaran has paid off for the BJP in Tirunelveli constituency, with the transfer of Thevar votes.  

Similarly, in Chennai South, an urban constituency, the AIADMK has lost over 11% of votes between 2019 and 2024, and the DMK has lost over 3%. This vote seems to have largely transferred to the BJP. The party fielded former state unit head and governor of Puducherry and Telengana, Tamilisai Soundararajan from this seat, which would have also resulted in the vote share increase.

A share of the BJP’s 26.44% vote share in this seat seems to also have come from the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM).

In Madurai, where CPI(M) candidate Su Venkatesan won a second term, the DMK-led alliance of which the two left parties are a part, managed to maintain their vote share between 2019 and 2024, 10% of AIADMK’s vote share from 2019 and all of MNM’s votes from that year seem to have transferred to the BJP in 2024. The BJP fielded Professor Srinivasan who was a popular candidate in Madurai constituency. In Nilgiris too, where Union Minister L Murugan contested against DMK’s A Raja, a portion of AIADMK’s vote (>10%), DMK’s vote (8%), and MNM’s votes (4.07%) seem to have gone to the BJP. 

The NDA’s vote share in nine other constituencies, where its ally Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) contested from, came close to the two Dravidian parties. The PMK, which banks on the Vanniyar (classified as Most Backward Class) community, , a dominant caste group in the northern constituencies including Arakkonam, Arani, Kancheepuram, Dharmapuri, and Villupuram among others, finished third in eight out of the 10 seats, second in Dharmapuri, and fourth in Kallakurichi.

It is noteworthy that the NDA is closely behind its former ally AIADMK in terms of the state’s collective vote share. The AIADMK, which also lost all seats, garnered 23.05% of the total vote share, only 4.77% ahead of the BJP led NDA. The DMK, which has swept all the 39 seats in the state along with its allies, garnered 46.97% of the votes.