Congress Breaks with DMK to Back Vijay’s TVK in Tamil Nadu
Congress is trading a stable DMK alliance for leverage with TVK, betting Vijay’s rise is the better route to office, relevance and future seats.
Congress has switched sides at the decisive moment in Tamil Nadu. After fighting the Assembly election with the DMK, the party’s state unit is now backing C. Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) to form the next government, while also seeking an “appropriate share” in power. The move comes after TVK won 108 seats in the 234-member House, just short of a majority, while Congress took only five seats but suddenly became useful in government formation. 
The Hindu
Why Congress is making the jump
This is not ideological conversion; it is leverage management. Congress had entered the election in a formal pact with the DMK, signed in March for 28 Assembly seats and one Rajya Sabha berth. That deal looked like a settled place in the DMK-led coalition. But TVK’s surprise debut has changed the arithmetic, and AICC leaders have already signalled they would “factor in the emerging scenario” and decide accordingly. The Hindu, The Hindu
The immediate beneficiary is TVK, not Congress. Vijay now needs partners to cross the majority mark, and the Congress—despite its small seat count—has enough legitimacy to help him claim a broader, less fragile mandate. But Congress is trying to turn that dependence into cabinet access, not just a support letter. It has also drawn a red line: TVK should not lean on the BJP or its allies. The Hindu
What this does to the DMK and the opposition map
For the DMK, this is a political embarrassment and a strategic loss. The party is not just losing a coalition partner; it is watching a rival coalition form around the most disruptive new actor in the state. TVK’s 108-seat debut shattered the old DMK-AIADMK bipolarity and left both Dravidian majors behind. Congress choosing TVK over DMK tells every smaller party in Tamil Nadu that the old coalition map is now open for renegotiation. The Hindu
There is a second-order effect too: Congress is using Tamil Nadu to show it can still bargain from a position of necessity, not dependence. That matters for 
India, where alliance politics increasingly turns on post-poll arithmetic rather than pre-poll loyalty.
What to watch next
The next test is Governor-level arithmetic and who turns up with written support. If TVK can lock in Congress and avoid BJP-linked backing, it can claim a cleaner mandate. If not, the result could drift into a hung-Assembly standoff with parties pricing their support seat by seat. Watch Vijay’s next move and whether the Congress national leadership allows this break with DMK to harden into a longer-term realignment before local body, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha contests. The Hindu
