The Territorialisation of Politics: Regional Parties and State Level Political Competition in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The territorialisation of politics has become one of the defining characteristics of India’s federal party system. While national parties remain central to parliamentary politics, state level electoral competition has increasingly developed distinct political logics rooted in sub national identities, regional social cleavages, local leadership, welfare politics and state specific policy preferences. Tamil Nadu represents one of the most significant cases of this process. Since the electoral breakthrough of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1967, political power in the state has been overwhelmingly structured around regional Dravidian parties. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), founded in 1972, subsequently transformed competition into a durable regional-party-centred system. This article conceptualises this trajectory as the territorialisation of politics: the process through which political competition, party organisation, identity formation and policy mobilisation become increasingly anchored in the territorial political community of the state. Drawing on the literature on federalism, regional parties, sub-nationalism, party organisation, social cleavages and welfare politics, the paper develops a multi-dimensional framework for explaining Tamil Nadu’s distinctive party system. It argues that regional-party dominance cannot be explained by linguistic identity alone. Rather, it emerged from the interaction of five mechanisms: sub-national political identity, social incorporation, organisational institutionalisation, competitive welfare populism and federal bargaining. The paper also examines the contemporary transformation of this system. The 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election is particularly significant because the emergence of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) as the largest single party, with 108 of 234 seats, alongside the DMK’s 59 and AIADMK’s 47, indicates that territorialisation may be enduring even as the traditional Dravidian-party configuration changes (Election Commission of India [ECI], 2026). The paper concludes that the future of Tamil Nadu politics may therefore involve not the decline of regionalism but its reconfiguration into a broader, more competitive and increasingly multi-party form.