PMK is to the DMK what the Left is to the Congress at the Centre. Highly critical, never yielding and very public. But that’s where the similarities end—as the PMK found out on Tuesday, when the DMK snapped ties with the party that provided it outside support.

From being a caste organisation, the group became a political entity in 1989. Like many regional parties, the PMK also has its history of casteism and separatism, though the party leadership had, in recent times, been able to take it beyond those limitations.

The party was formed as an extension of the powerful Vanniyar Sangam, a caste outfit that takes up social causes for the Vanniyars. A ‘most backward caste’, Vanniyars comprise about 12 per cent of the state’s population and over half of the total number of MBCs in the state. The northern areas of Tamil Nadu, known as the Vanniyar belt, has stood strongly behind the PMK.

But after the PMK became a political outfit, it widened its outlook and took up issues related to the other “oppressed communities”. However, “the strength of the party remains the staunchly loyal community members who vote for the party”, according to a rival party leader.

PMK is also a staunch sympathiser of the LTTE cause, despite the Congress opposition. It is also a Tamil chauvinist outfit, at times violently lashing out at organisations and individuals for “defiling” Tamil culture. In its formative years, PMK was a reactionary and impulsive party, like its founder Dr S. Ramadoss. Actress Khusboo was at the receiving end for her comments on pre-marital sex; actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth of the DMDK floated his party after a very public war of words between the two; and PMK has even taken on Rajnikanth in the past.

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