Even though emerging parties have often aspired to change the status quo, the people of Tamil Nadu have made their peace with this binary leadership game.

This year, however, all eyes are on three specific candidates, who have boldly taken on the might of the Dravidian biggies in an attempt to herald a new dawn of leadership in the state. The Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) headed by Seeman; Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) led by Kamal Haasan; and the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), headed by TTV Dhinakaran are attempting to make a play for the third place. But can any of these candidates, increase their vote share from a single digit to a double-digit percentage, thereby forming a semblance of a second opposition to those in power?

‘Captain’ Vijayakanth, who would have been considered probable to lead this third contingent not too long ago, could offer some pointers to the same. The DMDK has now formed a last-minute, pre-poll alliance with the AMMK, whose general secretary TTV Dhinakaran, had recently filed his nomination for the Kovilpatti seat. Dhinakaran had vouched that he would make a clean sweep by a margin of 50,000 votes in the constituency. It may be recalled that in the 2017 RK Nagar by-election, TTV contested as an independent candidate and had trumped AIADMK’s candidate E Madhusudhanan by a large margin of votes.

With last-minute alliances being the order of the day for smaller parties, Kamal Haasan got a shot in the arm as the All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi founder R Sarathkumar backed his chief ministerial candidature. The MNM had made its debut two years ago in the Lok Sabha polls. And although it did not win any of the seats it had contested in, it racked up a vote share of 3.72% in the seats that it contested and boasted of a commendable performance in urban areas like Chennai, Coimbatore, and Madurai.

On a diametrically opposite tangent, is Seeman, who has chosen to steer clear of any allies in this election. Contesting from the Tiruvottiyur constituency, he has set his sights on the fishermen and trading communities here. Seeman had previously contested in the 2016 elections from the Cuddalore constituency and bagged 12,497 votes. This time around, he has a tall order ahead of him, as he is an outsider to Tiruvottiyur and is slated to face off with battle-hardened candidates of the AIADMK and DMK. Seeman’s calling card is ridding Tamil Nadu of dynastic politics and sticking to his notion of diversity in leadership as the party has allotted 50 per cent of its seats for women candidates, just like it did in the 2019 Parliamentary elections, where the party secured 4 per cent of the vote share.

With just about a couple of days to go for elections to commence in Tamil Nadu, both the candidates and the citizens are traversing a razor’s edge, as election times are known to throw up surprises aplenty. For the public in TN, it will be interesting to watch the political journeys of these candidates, knowing fully well that even if they manage to secure their seats for sure, their relevance might be limited to being outliers, in a state that has danced to the tunes of two parties for the better part of a century now.