Tamil Nadu: DMK Scored A Narrative Win On The 2024 Budget

The Union budget for 2024 appeared to be a disappointment for a lot of states, including Tamil Nadu, as no specific announcements were made for them.

Criticising the budget, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has gone to town stating that the Centre has not fulfilled its demands, which included funding and approval for metro projects in Chennai (Phase 2), Coimbatore and Madurai along with sanction for the Tambaram-Chengalpattu elevated expressway corridor.

Party members and supporters shared screenshots of people searching for 'Tamil Nadu' in the budget speech and not being able to find any mention of the state.

In a state that has consistently seen a narrative that it receives much lesser than the share of revenue contributed by it, this made the situation difficult for the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The party, in spite of its good performance in the state in the Lok Sabha elections, with it getting over 11 per cent of the vote, has an uphill battle to face.

The narrative of victimhood and the tendency to blame the Centre is deeply rooted in the psyche of Tamil Nadu due to the nature of Dravidian politics.

This budget is only likely to help the DMK reinforce this feeling and pointing at the alleged north-south divide, with other southern states like Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana too not getting any readily visible sops in the 2024 budget.

It wouldn't be surprising if the DMK, along with the Congress, which is in power in Telangana and Karnataka, tries to revive the 'South-Tax' narrative.

What also helps the party achieve a narrative victory is that it has a strong influence over the vernacular media. A very recent example to illustrate how the party gets away by blaming the Centre is the recent hike in power tariffs.

It stated that the state government was compelled to do so due to the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme of the Centre.

While the DMK's justification for the tariff raise got widespread coverage, the BJP's response, in which it laid out the benefits of the scheme, didn't reach as many people, giving the former a narrative victory.

While the BJP has made efforts to counter the DMK's narrative on the budget by speaking about how the allocations to capital expenditure, railways, defence or the steps to boost employment would help every state, including Tamil Nadu, it hasn't cut much ice.

The DMK thus seems to have won the narrative war once again.