Nagapattinam: Seeman, the chief coordinator of the Naam Tamilar Katchi, who has announced that he will contest the by-election in the Ambasamudram constituency, had spoken in a tone suggesting that he should be declared a common candidate. However, with no major response from the AIADMK and DMK on that, the question has arisen: is it really possible to field a common candidate against TVK in the five constituency by-elections?
The 34.92 percent of votes won by TVK in the 2026 Assembly election, and TVK’s capture of two constituencies in the recently held by-election, have led to the idea that a common candidate should now be fielded against that party. However, since there are about 65 percent of votes against TVK, the view is being put forward that other parties should unite to defeat TVK.
In the last general election, DMK won 24.19 percent of the votes on its own and 31.40 percent of the votes including its alliance. AIADMK won 21.21 percent of the votes on its own and 27.21 percent of the votes including its alliance. NTK contested independently and won 4.02 percent of the votes. Political analysts say that if these votes are combined, TVK can be easily defeated.
That is, if the votes won separately by DMK and AIADMK are combined with the votes won by NTK, it comes to 49.42 percent. In addition, if anti-incumbency votes are also added, it is estimated that around 55 percent of the votes could be secured. This is what forms the basis for the idea of a common candidate. But if the question is whether this is possible in practice, they say that recent by-election history suggests there is no chance of that.
Before this, in the 2002 Andipatti by-election, the idea was put forward that a common candidate should be fielded against Jayalalithaa. But that did not happen.
In the 2015 R.K. Nagar by-election, the DMK merely stayed out of the contest against Jayalalithaa; even then, no common candidate was fielded.
In the current by-election, both the DMK and the AIADMK want to establish how much of their own individual influence they have.
Moreover, since TVK has been repeatedly saying that DMK and AIADMK are forming an alliance to bring down TVK’s government, those parties do not want to create a situation in which, if a common candidate is fielded, what TVK says will turn out to be true. Neither party wants a situation to arise in which only a DMK-AIADMK alliance can oppose TVK.
If Seeman were to support the DMK unconditionally, there is a possibility that he could be fielded as the alliance’s candidate. Otherwise, political observers say there is currently no chance of a common candidate in all five constituencies.