3 min readChennai, New DelhiFeb 17, 2026 11:35 AM IST
First published on: Feb 17, 2026 at 06:44 AM IST
For nearly seven years, the alliance between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Congress has functioned as one of the most stable arrangements in Indian politics.
Now, it is being tested – not by ideology or electoral arithmetic, but by the Congress’s internal dynamics. The immediate spark came from Madurai. At a District Congress Committee (DCC) meeting, Virudhunagar MP B Manickam Tagore sharpened his attack on the DMK. “When the DMK district secretary asks disparagingly whether the Congress has enough workers to handle the booths, it becomes a problem. We carried the blame and answered for your mistakes,” he said, invoking the UPA’s 2014 debacle. “Our leader Rahul Gandhi calls CM M K Stalin his ‘elder brother’. He expects the same respect to be given to the ordinary Congress workers…” he said.
The meeting passed a resolution demanding a share in power – despite Stalin having publicly ruled it out days earlier.
Multiple Congress sources describe the tension as a reflection of a quiet rivalry within the national leadership. Tamil Nadu Congress Committee chief K Selvaperunthagai is seen as aligned with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. Tagore is viewed as close to Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal.
One senior Congress leader said that while the number of seats remains open for negotiation, the broader alliance decision had effectively been settled when DMK MP Kanimozhi met Rahul Gandhi.
But dissent continued. Within the DMK, the unease is layered. Leaders recall that when regional figures like K Chandrashekar Rao, Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar flirted with alternative federal fronts, the DMK stood firmly with the Congress. In 2019, Stalin publicly proposed Rahul Gandhi’s name as the PM candidate. In 2024, relatively new Congress new faces were fielded and won with significant margins under the alliance’s machinery. “Success rate was highest in DMK alliance for the national party,” one DMK minister pointed out.
And then there is history. The last time Congress contested alone in Tamil Nadu in a major parliamentary battle was 2014. The vote share hovered around 4.3 per cent.
Which is why Manickam’s critics inside the Congress question his calculus.
In the DMK, leaders say they are not eager to provoke a rupture. They recognise that Congress exiting would not dramatically alter their core vote base. But perception matters.
A group of Congress leaders expressed their frustration over the turn of events. “Things have gone out of control. We cannot mount an offensive (on the ally) just a few weeks ahead of the election notification,” said a state leader. Sources said the DMK has conveyed to some Congress leaders that it will not hold a meeting to discuss seat sharing unless there is a clarification from the Congress leadership in the national capital on whether Tagore’s comments “had Rahul’s approval”.
Tagore, when contacted, said he was just reacting to public statements by some DMK ministers and that the Congress wants the INDIA alliance to survive. He also rejected the view that his statements had Rahul’s approval.
In 2019, Stalin publicly proposed Rahul’s name as PM candidate. (File Photo) 
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