1996 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election

The J. Jayalalithaa led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government, which had been in power since 1991 was beset with corruption scandals and public discontent. A series of corruption scandals, a growing reputation for high handedness and an extravagant public wedding for Jayalalithaa's foster son Sudhakaran all combined to erode the AIADMK support base and the goodwill she had enjoyed with the electorate in the 1991 elections.[2][3][4]

The AIADMK's alliance with Indian National Congress (INC), which had helped it to win the 1991 elections ran into trouble midway through the AIADMK's term. J. Jayalalithaa terminated the alliance and Congress served as the principal opposition party in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. When the 1996 elections drew closer, it was expected that the Congress would contest the elections in alliance with the DMK. However against the wishes of the Tamil Nadu state unit of the Congress, the national congress leader (and then Indian prime minister) P. V. Narasimha Rao announced that the Congress would ally with the AIADMK. This led to a split in the Tamil Nadu Congress with a majority of the party workers and cadre forming the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) led by G. K. Moopanar. The TMC contested the elections in alliance with the DMK.[5][6]

In 1993, the DMK suffered a split when one of its more prominent second rung leaders, Vaiko was expelled from the party membership. The next year Vaiko floated a new party – the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK).[7][8]

There were four main coalitions in the 1996 elections. The DMK-TMC front which also included the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the AIADMK-Congress front were the main political groupings in the state. Both fronts had a number of smaller parties as constituents. The Indian National League and the All India Forward Bloc were part of the DMK front, while the AIADMK front also had Muslim Leagues, Forward Block, All India Republic Party, Uzhavar Uzhaippalar Katchi and United Communist Party. Apart from these two fronts, there was a MDMK led coalition which included the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), the Janata Dal (JD) and the Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP). The alliance between Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and All India Indira Congress (Tiwari) (Tiwari Congress) led by Vazhappady Ramamurthy was the fourth coalition that contested the elections. Initially, before the TMC was formed, the DMK put together a seven party alliance comprising itself, PMK, CPI, Tiwari Congress and a few other parties. However, this alliance fell through when the Tiwari Congress and PMK left the front after differences between Karunanidhi and Ramamurthy. After this, Cho Ramaswamy (editor of Thuglak) played a vital role in bringing together the DMK-TMC coalition and obtaining actor Rajinikanth's support for it.[9][10] There were a few other smaller political formations and parties contesting the election – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) contested the elections alone; Subramanian Swamy's Janata Party contested in alliance with the caste organisation Devendra Kula Vellar Sangam led by Dalit leader K. Krishnasamy.[6][11][12][13][14]

The DMK-TMC alliance enlisted the popular Tamil film actor Rajinikanth to campaign against the AIADMK in the elections. Rajinikanth declared his support for the DMK-TMC combine and members of his numerous fan clubs campaigned for the DMK front across Tamil Nadu. In a widely watched campaign appearance broadcast in Sun TV, he declared "even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if AIADMK returns to power".Rajinikanth's support gave enormous victory to DMK[15][16][17]