Chennai: In 2019, as the DMK prepared for the Lok Sabha elections, it analysed book after book of voter data, as it manually demarcated pockets where its voters are, and where it needs to put in extra effort.
Cut to 2024, the party is ready with an entire digital map of where its votes come from in every constituency, thus equipped with a framework to formulate its booth-level outreach.
This is part of a larger adoption of the digital realm for the DMK, a party that has long been known to be traditional in its approach to politics.
In September last year, the DMK launched the ‘Makkaludan Stalin (Stalin with the people)’ mobile phone app as a one-stop platform for people to connect with the party’s activities and to disseminate information about its government and schemes.
In the preceding month, the party announced the launch of a podcast by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin called ‘Speaking for India’, as an attempt to take the DMK’s Dravidian model of governance to a national audience.
At the heart of all these initiatives is the DMK’s very own strategist firm, Populus Empowerment Network (PEN), which is owned by Stalin’s son-in-law V. Sabareesan.
PEN was founded in November 2022 with the specific purpose of helping the DMK meet its political goals through technology and strategy.
The company is the latest in a long list of political strategy firms — from Association of Billion Minds (ABM), to Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), Inclusive Minds, and Mindshare Analytics — that have worked with parties across the political spectrum, including the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress, over the past few years.
The DMK itself has earlier worked with I-PAC, co-founded by former poll strategist Prashant Kishor, as well as Sunil Kanugolu of Inclusive Minds and Mindshare Analytics.
However, Manikandan Vasudevan, who heads PEN’s election wing, said there was a nuanced difference between their organisation and other political strategy firms.
With PEN, he said, the aim is to give technological and strategic support to CM Stalin’s vision rather than strategise on how to win elections.
“PEN is not an election strategy company. Election strategy companies will focus on election work. They don’t have a political commitment towards the party, and move on once the elections are over,” he added. “But PEN is not like that. We have a political commitment towards the DMK.”
In this turn of the DMK, political observers see an attempt by the party to modernise itself. How it impacts the 2024 outcome, however, is something that can’t be gauged yet, they say.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the DMK-Congress alliance swept Tamil Nadu, winning 38 of its 39 seats. In the Union territory of Puducherry, too, the lone seat went to the Congress.
The DMK’s increased digital push comes as the BJP pursues an aggressive campaign to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu, which has for decades voted Dravidian parties to office.
PM Narendra Modi launched 2024 with a big-ticket visit to the state where he spoke of his love of the Tamil language and culture, and inaugurated or laid the foundation stone for several projects.
For the upcoming election, Stalin has asked his party to aim for winning all the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu (39) and Puducherry (one) under the slogan of “Narpathum Namathe, Nadum Namathe (all 40 seats and the country will be ours)”.
To that end, for the first time in the history of the DMK, the party has appointed observers in all of Tamil Nadu’s 234 assembly constituencies.
Also Read: Gone are the days of ‘Hindi theriyadhu poda’. DMK’s wooing Hindi heartland with podcasts, jobs now
DMK and PEN
PEN’s launch came after the DMK worked with I-PAC in the 2021 assembly election.
A DMK member said after the party won the election, it decided to launch its very own political strategic company, driven by its experience of working with professionals in the field.
Like I-PAC, the leader added on the condition of anonymity, PEN is involved in conducting surveys, data analysis, grassroots-level ground analysis, selecting spokespersons for TV news debates, and organising conferences etc.
According to political analyst J.V.C. Sreeram, the DMK, under the leadership of the late M. Karunanidhi, was a cadre-driven party.
Karunanidhi, he said, would be aware of the developments in each of the 234 assembly seats, and know people in the constituencies by their name.
By working with professional political strategists, Sreeram said, a “traditional and conventional party like the DMK [has shown that it] is willing to adapt to new changes and… is trying to use the latest technology to their advantage”.
“Working with someone like Prashant Kishor, who has a successful track record, might have given someone like Sabareesan the understanding on how these strategic companies work, and it would not be tough to incorporate it into the DMK, which already has the political experience,” he added.
However, he said, “we need to wait and see how effective this can be for them”.
PEN has a team of 500 people working across multiple wings like ‘surveys and research’, ‘media’, ‘production’, ‘social media’, and ‘product’.
It builds agenda for the party by analysing public-opinion research data, and helps with policy analysis and custom policy recommendations.
Other focus areas include creating digital marketing strategies, social media management, developing engaging content and messaging, executing PR and media outreach campaigns, and fostering social movements through strategic community partnerships and collaborations, besides election data analysis, real-time trend analysis, and developing custom AI real-time poll-management applications.
Among other things, PEN is working with the DMK to train and strengthen the booth committees, as part of which specialised training has been given to 65,000 booth in-charges from 16 July onwards.
As stated earlier, the agency has also been involved in the digitisation of the voters’ list in each constituency.
Although a tedious process, these digitised lists are a comprehensive means for the top leadership to understand the ground reality, said Manikandan.
Dravidian model of governance
Tamil Nadu is sticking to its social justice cause as its prime theme for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The All India Federation for Social Justice, a brainchild of Stalin to integrate leaders and activists for the cause, has brought together 19 political parties from across the country since its formation in January 2022.
There have been other efforts, too, to take the DMK’s message beyond Tamil Nadu.
Stalin’s podcast, described by the CM as a “voice from the south”, is translated into several languages, including Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and Hindi.
The first three episodes of the podcast received over 3.5 million views in the first 30 days, according to PEN estimates.
Manikandan said they “want to take the message of the success of the Dravidian model governance to the rest of the country”.
“There is a misconception against the DMK as an anti-Hindi party, but that is not true. We are against Hindi imposition and these podcasts will help communicate our true policies and our success,” he added.
PEN also provided technical support for the ‘Makkaludan Stalin’ app, an initiative of the CM that was given its look and content by the DMK’s IT wing.
Manikandan described the app as “a work in progress”, before discussing the features on the anvil.
“The party workers who are verified users will have additional features, while the general public will be able to access customised features, as per their age, interest, scheme eligibility etc,” said Manikandan.
The features, he added, will include an option for users to directly submit their questions to the CM.
Adapting to changing times
Political observers say, with the DMK likely to face anti-incumbency in both the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the 2026 assembly elections, PEN could help give the party a crucial final push.
“The DMK has never won a state election as an incumbent since 1971,” said Sreeram, adding that the party is doing “out-of-the-box” things like working with PEN in the run-up to elections.
Analyst Priyan Srinivasan said “a strategy company like PEN can help the DMK understand the reality on the ground and the pulse of the targeted audience, which will play a crucial role during elections”.
While bureaucracy in the government can be a source of understanding the impact of schemes and the extent of implementation, the government cannot just depend on the bureaucracy alone for this, he added.
Pointing at the training of booth workers, he said “booth committee workers have been instructed to constantly be in touch with the common public in their respective region, make them understand the government schemes, efforts, and help people identify the eligible schemes for different individuals using the Makkaludan Stalin app as well”.
In Tamil Nadu, Priyan said, the DMK has a clear understanding of its target audience.
Women, who used to vote for MGR and Jayalalithaa (AIADMK), have become the focus group of the DMK, which has developed schemes like free bus rides for women, and monthly aid for the women heads of families, he added.
“With a strong women-oriented scheme, the DMK can tackle anti-incumbency,” said Priyan.
Social media has increasingly become a poll tool, with the BJP known to have pioneered its use for election campaigns.
Sreeram said the “DMK cannot replicate this success strategy of the BJP, [but] maybe they can take a few leaves out of the BJP playbook”.
“The success of that as well can only be 25 percent of the BJP’s success, as there is a fundamental difference in the DNA of the two parties,” he added. “If the BJP playbook could be replicated, the Congress could have done it long back, but they have been struggling for nine years now.”
Everyone will have to embrace technology now or later, Sreeram said, even as he added that technology can only be a value addition and “by itself can’t be an election winner”.
At PEN, the target is clear — developing a team to bolster awareness about the Dravidian model.
“This generation of 18-30-year-olds… we want to make them understand the need for development and how the Dravidian model works, and how it will take society in the direction of growth,” said Manikandan.
“The DMK has moved to this format of having a political strategy company in its journey, other parties will also follow this in the future,” he added.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
Also Read: Why Senthilkumar, DMK MP who made ‘gaumutra states’ remark, is ‘repeat offender’ in eyes of BJP