AA Edit | OPS In DMK: New TN Twist

Politics is an arena where strange things unfold. And yet there was nothing strange or surprising about former chief minister and ousted AIADMK leader O. Panneerselvam, popularly referred to as OPS, joining the DMK on Friday, though some sceptics could be wondering why he was let into the party at all. In fact, neither the DMK nor OPS has anything to lose through the association that did not come out of the blue.

It was the DMK that was dilly-dallying on admitting the former chief minister, who polled 3,42,882 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Ramanathapuram and finished second as an NDA candidate. OPS had a tete-e-tete with chief minister M.K. Stalin during a morning walk inside the woody premises of the Theosophical Society way back on July 31, 2025.

The last straw for his switchover to the DMK was perhaps the NDA neglecting him in the seat-sharing talks and because that was also his last hope to stay relevant in politics after having served as the CM intermittently three times. That the DMK welcomed him warmly into its midst is not without reason. In the present coalition politics that the DMK plays with elan, poll arithmetic demands that not a single vote is allowed to slip through the fingers, particularly when the powerful community to which OPS belongs recognises him as their representative and could vote for him in large numbers.

An addition to the tightly packed coalition could be an excuse for the DMK to ward off entreaties for more seats from existing allies, particularly those that have even girdled up to seek power sharing. Since the NDA roped in T.T.V. Dinakaran, who, like OPS, is another chip of the old AIADMK block, and gave rise to the perception that its popularity has soared in the southern districts, the DMK might have felt that OPS could be a counter to that swing. Above all, the OPS team could only increase DMK’s vote share by contesting in the party symbol.