Together in govt, opposed in politics: CEC protest reveals TVK-Congress disconnect again

In a glaring rift over one of the most burning political issues in the country right now, the Congress and the TVK have diverged over their stands on the Chief Election Commissioner, exposing the fragility of a coalition that is barely four months old and already divided over 2029 national ambitions.

The Congress, a partner in Tamil Nadu’s new ruling coalition, has launched protests across the state—and the country—demanding the removal, and even arrest, of CEC Gyanesh Kumar. Its alliance partner, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), however, has not only refused to join the campaign, but publicly called it a “political diversion”.

Allies with different views

On Monday (September 29), Congress workers gathered outside the collectorate in Virudhunagar, demanding that Kumar be arrested and an inquiry into voter-list deletions under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) be conducted.

In Salem, party workers at the Fort ground demanded Kumar’s resignation, accusing him of “murdering democracy” under the cover of SIR in a manner favourable to the BJP-led Centre. Similar demonstrations were held in Chennai and other districts, matching a nationwide Congress programme marked by marches, detentions, and clashes with police in several states.

Also read: TVK-Congress alliance named Secular Social Justice Victory Alliance

But the TVK, which came to power in the state by pulling off a big upset in a post-SIR Assembly election, took a different stand on the issue. School Education and Tamil Development Minister Rajmohan said the party would not become “fodder” for a campaign to change the CEC for political gain.

Did TVK gain from SIR?

Rajmohan told The Federal, “TVK president C Joseph Vijay issued a statement on the issue even before the party entered office, clearly recording opposition to SIR and calling for corrections in the revision process. We stand on the same position today.” He also affirmed that “TVK is not a party that conducts protests and issues statements for politics.”

Rajmohan acknowledged that specific votes were indeed deleted during the SIR, and had that not happened, TVK would have won by a much bigger margin. BJP leader and former Tamil Nadu unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan however, had the totally opposite take on it.

“A new outfit like TVK could win only because of the revision. Had there been no SIR, Rajmohan would not have been a minister today, Vijay would not have been the chief minister, and the DMK would have returned to office; TVK should therefore thank the exercise first instead of attacking it,” she told The Federal. She added that Rahul Gandhi, the DMK and others were opposing a legitimate democratic clean-up of the rolls only to cover their defeat.

A divorce, and a marriage, of convenience

After the 2026 assembly elections, Congress broke up its alliance with the DMK that had lasted since the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, with only a brief interruption in 2014. On May 6, the Grand Old Party announced support for TVK on the condition that communal forces stay out of the arrangement. Vijay was sworn in as the chief minister. The post-poll bloc, later named the Secular Social Justice Victory Alliance, emerged with TVK, Congress, VCK, MDMK and IUML, with the Left supporting from outside. Congress ministers sit in the Cabinet.

Also read: 'Rahul vs Vijay PM face debate won't affect TVK-Congress ties'

The SIR row has also reopened a Congress factional fight that the party had tried to bury after the 2026 verdict. Before the Assembly polls, a group led by then Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K Selvaperunthagai and P Chidambaram had pushed to retain the long alliance with the DMK, which had briefly prevailed. But after the results, the arithmetic flipped: Congress’s five MLAs helped TVK form the government; Manickam Tagore was installed as TNCC chief; and Selvaperunthagai moved into open dissent.

He asked why the party should stay with the TVK if Rahul Gandhi would not be named as the 2029 prime ministerial candidate. TVK voices argued that the country’s highest office should go to a leader from Tamil Nadu. Congress ministers have been quoted saying they would resign if the alliance did not back Rahul Gandhi.

The TVK’s refusal to join the Congress’s campaign against CEC Gyanesh Kumar now reads, in that camp, as the proof they wanted that the post-poll partnership is already pulling in two directions, much unlike the old DMK habit of marching together against the Centre.

Stark contrast with old relationship

In many ways, the contrast with the old Congress-DMK relationship is stark. For years, the Congress treated the DMK as its principal southern partner against the BJP. The two parties campaigned together, shared platforms against the Centre, and presented a common front on federal and secular issues. Congress accepted junior status in Tamil Nadu in return for a reliable ally in the national arithmetic.

Also read: Vijay or Rahul for PM in 2029? Why the new TVK-Congress alliance is under strain

But with the TVK, the views are starkly dissimilar. While the Congress wants street mobilisation and personal targeting of the CEC, TVK wants to treat SIR as a process that needed correction but not as a cue for a national agitation that could be read as an attack on an institution.

Alliance partner VCK has sided more with the Congress, with Thol Thirumavalavan calling on Kumar to step down. The DMK, now in Opposition, has said it will study any impeachment notice before taking a line. The old pattern of Congress and DMK marching together against the Centre has been replaced by a ruling partner marching while the chief minister’s party stays off the street.

A deal struck in haste

Political observer Dayalan Shanmugam reads the present rift as the predictable cost of a deal struck in haste. The Congress, he said, snapped up an alliance with the TVK the moment power was on offer: It was an arrangement for office, born as much of anger at the DMK as of any shared agenda. In his view, the partnership was never a natural fit.

The numbers may have put Vijay in Fort St. George, Shanmugam argued, but the front was not built on an ideological base. An anti-DMK combination of the kind Vijay invokes would, in Tamil Nadu’s real arithmetic, point towards the TVK and the AIADMK sharing space, precisely the alignment the DMK, while still in office, used every instrument it had to prevent.

Also read: Congress-TVK alliance to continue for future Parliament and local body polls also

Congress walked into a government without settling that larger question, and is now discovering that a Cabinet berth does not buy a common line on the Election Commission issue or on 2029.

Shanmugam also recalled what BJP national general secretary BL Santhosh said when the 2026 results were declared and a TVK government was taking shape: In Tamil Nadu, anyone might seize power by any route, but it was Congress that would be humiliated. That forecast, the observer said, has begun to come true. The party that broke with the DMK to sit with Vijay now finds its nationwide campaign against CEC Gyanesh Kumar unanswered by its own ruling partner, and its internal critics asking why the alliance should survive at all.