Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam

DMDK contested all 39 seats independently in Tamil Nadu in the 15th Lok Sabha election and lost all of them. The party, however, made strong inroads in the heartland of Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK). The party polled 30.73 lakh votes of the total of 3.02 crore valid votes polled in the state representing roughly a vote share of 10.09%. This is higher than the 8.38% vote share polled by him during the 2006 assembly election. It polled more than one lakh votes in nine constituencies, more than 75,000 in 19 constituencies and more than 50,000 in 35 constituencies including Puducherry.

Though his party did not win any seat, it appears to have made the difference between winning and losing for several candidates by having a vote share larger than the margin of victory. Except LK Sudhish and Austin in Kanyakumari and K Pandiarajan in Virudhunagar constituency, none of the other candidates had a standing of their own and observers believe the votes polled by him indicate the public support for his candidacy.[4]

DMDK had remained unaligned and contested all the previous elections independently until 2011 election. In an effort — claimed by the party — to defeat the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, it allied with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam front in a decision made on 25 February 2011.[5] It won 29 of the 41 seats contested making it a second largest party in Tamil Nadu next only to its ally ADMK pushing DMK to third position. Thus, the party became the official opposition party with Vijayakanth becoming the opposition leader. The large victory also earned recognition and a permanent election symbol from the election commission.[6] On 21 February 2016 Vijayakanth lost leader of opposition post after 8 DMDK party MLAs resigned.[7]

DMDK fought Lok Sabha Election through an alliance with BJP led NDA.[8] MDMK, PMK, KMDK and IJK led Social Democratic Alliance are the other allies of NDA in Tamil Nadu. In the NDA alliance, this party is the one with highest number of seats which are 14 in number. Despite the big hype, the party lost all 14 seats to AIADMK candidates. But this is the first time in 52 years that DMK alliance was pushed to third place by the number of seats and this election had given the confidence to most parties that future of Tamil Nadu lies in coalition government.

For the 2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election, the DMDK has decided to contest the polls along with the People's Welfare Front (PWA) – an alliance of four parties including CPI(M), CPI, Vaiko’s MDMK and Thol Thirumavalavan’s Dalit party VCK, known as Captain Vijayakanth Alliance[9] The DMDK performed poorly in the election by not winning even a single constituency and losing deposit in majority of its places. DMDK also witnessed a vote swing of -5.8% from 2011 General elections.

DMDK is contesting Lok Sabha elections with National Democratic Alliance in Tamil Nadu for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

After several rounds of talks with different political parties, at last DMDK got four seats in the NDA alliance.

The move comes after the DMDK’s attempts to make an alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which has already entered into a pre-poll alliance with the Congress and several others, failed.

Captain Vijayakanth wants to prove his vote bank strength in this election .

On March 18, 2019, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) has announced its list of four candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. Azhagarsamy will contest polls from Virudhunagar, LK Sudhish from Kallakurichi, Ilankovan from Tiruchi and Mohan Raj from Chennai (North).

• Vijaykanth's interview to rediff.com
• தேமுதிக Official Facebook Link