As the election campaign in Tamil Nadu wound down on April 21 ahead of the Assembly election on April 23, one question has occupied political parties and strategists: what goes on in the mind of the voter who is not committed to any organised political party? Which way will he or she sway?

This question is important because all parties have a fixed cadre voter base, and it is the votes of the unattached voter that they desperately seek, especially in a waveless election like this one. Across the State, political observers and journalists have not identified any wave favouring any single party. While the presence of actor Vijay and his political party, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), has created huge euphoria among some sections of the youth, it falls well short of a wave in an election.

The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) vote base is between 25 and 30 per cent while the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) cadre vote base, which shrank a little in 2021, is between 20 per cent and 22 per cent depending on the constituency. The national parties, the BJP and the Congress, have a fraction of this number. So do the smaller political parties, including the Left parties. “This is the minimum guarantee for both Dravidian parties. They can be sure of getting these minimum numbers,” said ”Aspire” Swaminathan, a political strategist and former AIADMK IT wing secretary.

According to Swaminathan and other experts, the voter has already decided how he or she will vote, even if the decision is to go for NOTA (None of the Above). “I would not say that the percentage of the undecided voter is big in Tamil Nadu. It can be 1 to 1.5 per cent,” he told Frontline. There is also a rural and urban divide in the unattached voter.

A quick look at past elections as well as conversations with strategists and leaders of political parties indicate that this vote, in the normal course, is captive to two factors—caste and the “insider” tag for candidates. Thus, either caste affiliations will impact this individual voter or they will decide based on whether the candidate is considered an “insider” or “outsider”. But since many rural affiliations or networks have a basis in caste, it essentially means that the ball comes back to the “caste” court.

“Rural voters are well aware of what affiliations matter,” said a senior Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) functionary from Perambalur, speaking about how the rural voter responds when he or she is undecided. “In all the elections that I have been part of, in the end, caste is the factor. If the candidate is from the same caste, then the next factor is whether the candidate is a local person or an outsider,” said the functionary, who stays in the background and has managed elections for the VCK over the past three decades.

The unattached voter can also be swayed by other factors. “Some voters are interested but unaffiliated and there are others who are without any interests or stakes,” said Raveendran Duraisamy, a political analyst. “Interested voters are from the major castes and [religious] minorities. They vote strategically, even though their choice can differ from one election to another,” he said. For instance, in 2024, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) was in alliance with the AIADMK, but after the AIADMK allied with the BJP for the 2026 election, the SDPI, with its major base among Muslims (who make up approximately 5.86 per cent of the State’s population), has moved away and will vote for the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA).

Unattached voters belong to smaller caste groups, who do not have the numbers to become a lobby. They are often largely urban. They can be linguistic minorities or micro caste groups. In a close election, their votes become very important. This unattached urban voter is the person that all political parties are eyeing. That is why the DMK released an additional manifesto in Chennai, the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) published an unprecedented advertisement in The Hindu on April 21, and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu campaigned in support of the AIADMK-BJP’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Chennai on April 21. Each of these moves needs an explanation.

The DMK realised that despite its overwhelming presence in Chennai, it needs to get last-minute traction. So it took the “development” approach to woo the undecided voter. While this is something the party has pushed from Day 1, the absence of any other emotive factor made it use the same push for undecided urban voters too—that its government is committed to development and its leader’s image is much better than that of other party leaders.

For the NTK, it is a question of survival as it struggles to maintain its flock and its numbers. The party has been the beneficiary of first-time voters across many elections. This time that voter has another choice—actor Vijay’s TVK. This is where the NTK’s change in strategy comes into play. It has fielded as many as six Brahmin candidates in a bid to attract this community. The TVK, too, has fielded Brahmins. The two parties are banking on the fact that the two main political alliances have no Brahmin candidates in the field. NTK’s advertisement in The Hindu is part of this strategy, to get the urban Brahmin vote.

Naidu’s presence in Chennai is to appeal to the sizeable Telugu-speaking population in Chennai. While this looks like a strategy that the DMK-led SPA has failed to adopt, a DMK leader counters: “A lot of DMK leaders are native Telugu speakers. The question of the party neglecting Telugu speakers does not arise.” Besides, he added, “Language is not a voting group; even within this group, it is caste that matters.”

For over a decade now, it is the same unattached urban voter who has been bombarded by the BJP’s slogan for “a Tamil Nadu without kazhagams”. The BJP is responsible for increasing the voter base of people who do not want to vote for either Dravidian party. The saffron party under Narendra Modi began talking about the corruption of both these parties. This is what prompted the AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa to ask the crowd in 2014: “Andha Gujarat Modi-ya indha Lady-ya?” [That Gujarat Modi or this Lady?]. The voters of Tamil Nadu chose the “lady”, but the BJP continued with the script of the “corrupt” Dravidian parties.

In 2024, the BJP’s script of a Tamil Nadu without either Kazhagam was sharpened because there were three fronts fighting the election—one led by the DMK, another by the AIADMK, and a third by the BJP. In 2026, the BJP could not use this script because it is in a formal alliance with one of the Kazhagams, the AIADMK. However, thanks to the tech-savvy NTK and TVK cadres, the old BJP social media campaigns attacking both Dravidian parties have made a comeback, embarrassing the NDA partners. Tamil Nadu has a large urban base (over 50 per cent of its population lives in urban areas), and the message is spreading widely.

Analysts define the last category of unattached voter as the person who does not want their vote to be wasted. This voter always votes for the party or combine they think is set to win. After all, picking a winner is a great feeling.

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