CHENNAI: Muslim representation in Tamil Nadu’s major Dravidian parties has experienced a steady decline in the state Assembly elections, with direct representation shrinking over the years.
In the 2026 Assembly polls, the AIADMK-led NDA in Tamil Nadu has fielded only one Muslim candidate across the 234 seats - the lowest Muslim representation in AIADMK since the party was founded in 1972. The DMK, on the other hand, has just four Muslim candidates on its own 164-seat list, the second lowest direct share the party has offered since 2001, with the bulk of its alliance’s Muslim representation outsourced to allies including Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Manithaneya Makkal Katchi (MMK) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
The AIADMK built its Muslim base from its first contested election in 1977, when it fielded five Muslim candidates and produced three Muslim MLAs in its debut. Even through the Jayalalithaa years, when the party supported kar sevaks for the Ayodhya movement and backed laws banning conversions and cow slaughter, the AIADMK continued to distribute tickets to Muslim candidates and sent two, one, three and two Muslim legislators to Fort St George in 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016, respectively.
The 2021 Assembly election was the first in which none of the two Muslim candidates won on an AIADMK ticket. The single Muslim candidate across the entire NDA-AIADMK, PMK and other partners combined for the upcoming 2026 Assembly election shows how much has changed. However, party’s spokesperson and former MLA Babu Murugavel said that the party does not look at ‘caste, community and creed’ while allocating the seats from the days of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
“AIADMK was the party to nominate more Dalit candidates in general constituencies which no party can match with until date. Similarly, AIADMK was the only party to make a Dalit, the speaker of the party, which the DMK would never ever do. So, AIADMK is for all the people, irrespective of their identity,” Babu Murugavel said.
However, the DMK’s numbers tell a quieter but parallel story. Since its founding in 1949, the DMK has sent 36 Muslim MLAs to the state Assembly since 1962. The party’s Muslim representation peaked during Karunanidhi’s comebacks in 1989 and 1996, when the party sent seven and eight Muslim MLAs to the Assembly. Since 2001, the DMK has produced 14 Muslim MLAs, as against the AIADMK’s eight.
In 2026, however, only four seats were offered to Muslim candidates on the DMK’s direct list. The DMK-led SPA has nominated as many as 13 Muslim candidates, including two each from Congress, MMK, IUML, and one each from SDPI, MJK and VCK.
A DMK spokesperson, on the condition of anonymity, said that the representation of Muslims was given in proportion to their population in the state. “Although we could not allocate from our share of seats, the representation could be seen out of 234 seats only. So, we have given close to 6% of seats to Muslims, reflecting their population in the state,” the spokesperson said.
Commenting on the issue, Arunkumar, political analyst and assistant professor (political science) of a private university, said the space for Muslim representatives in mainstream parties shrinked after the rise of BJP in 2014. “Seats for Muslim candidates were largely given to allies, who became the representatives of the community.
However, the winning probability of those parties went down since more youngsters moved from electoral politics to movement politics post 1990s. It is a matter of concern which the mainstream parties should address,” Arunkumar told TNIE.
In contrast, actor-politician Vijay’s TVK, contesting its first Assembly election in all 234 seats, has fielded 12 Muslim candidates, including one Muslim woman. Seeman’s NTK has fielded 10 Muslim candidates (4.2%), including six Muslim women — the highest number of Muslim woman candidates any party in Tamil Nadu has offered.