CHENNAI: Reiterating his party's refusal to join any alliance involving the PMK and the BJP, which he said sought to divide society along caste and religious lines, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) president Thol Thirumavalavan on Sunday said Chief Minister MK Stalin was leading the DMK-led secular progressive alliance with clarity and resolve.
He said the VCK would continue to stand with the Chief Minister in opposing communal and divisive forces.
In a statement to party cadre, Thirumavalavan said the VCK's electoral choices over the past 25 years had been guided by ideology rather than short-term calculations of victory or defeat.
While the party had differences with the DMK and the Congress in earlier phases, the present political context, marked by the spread of divisive Sanatana politics at the national level, necessitated that secular and progressive forces come together.
Recalling the party's electoral journey, he said that after the 2011 election, Tamil Nadu politics witnessed a sharp shift when the Ramadoss-led PMK adopted what it called social engineering, an electoral malaise aimed at mobilising and splitting people along caste lines.
This, he said, disrupted the State's political landscape and deepened social divisions. Following this, the VCK took a firm stand that it would not enter into electoral ties with either the BJP or the PMK.
The VCK later contested the 2016 Assembly election as part of the People's Welfare Front along with the Left parties and the MDMK, but the alliance failed to make an electoral impact. Subsequently, the party aligned with the DMK on issues such as the Cauvery water dispute, which eventually evolved into the present Secular Progressive Alliance.
Since 2017, the alliance has engaged in sustained ideological struggles and secured successive victories, including the 2021 Assembly election, the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the local body polls. The coalition will now face the 2026 Assembly election, he said.
Thirumavalavan said the DMK-led alliance was built on clear principles of secularism, social justice and the protection of State rights, and was not a last-minute electoral arrangement driven by seat-sharing considerations.
Rejecting attempts to portray the party as being against the Vanniyar community or Hindus, he said the VCK's opposition was only to forces that sought to divide society on the basis of caste and religion.
He cautioned party members against making statements that could be misrepresented and urged them to work with commitment and discipline for the victory of secular progressive forces.