Amid the heated election campaigns ahead of the assembly polls, Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a drift in the alliance of the major parties and while the ruling ADMK party and BJP are disputing each other amid observing the alliance over the CM candidacy, the opposition alliance led by the DMK is now facing fresh trouble over the party symbol as some of the allied parties in the DMK faction had asserted that they will contest in their own party symbol in the assembly polls.

DMK's alliance is made up of the inclusion of Congress, MDMK, and VCK, and the Communities and the alliance had contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and recorded a landslide victory against the BJP- ADMK coalition. While DMK is hoping to emerge victories and take over the reign after a decade, the opposition party has now been surfaced with fresh trouble after Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), led by Thol Thirumavalavan, has insisted that it will contest the upcoming assembly polls on its own symbol. 

VCK has become the second party in the DMK alliance to demand to contest in the assembly polls on its own symbol. Earlier, MDMK Chief Vaiko had in October 2020 said that the party will contest on its own symbol to maintain individuality. VCK chief Thirumavalavan has on Saturday said that the party is planning to contest the legislative elections in its symbol. The VCK chief had met Puducherry Chief Minister Narayanasamy on Saturday. 

According to reports, Thirumavalavan has visited the Chief Minister to extend New Year wishes to Narayanasamy and the VCK chief had thanked the Puducherry Chief Minister for launching a scheme to sponsor the fees of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students. The reports say that Thirumavalavan and Vaiko had put out their intention of contesting the polls in their own symbols with the view of gaining recognition from the Election Commission. 

The DMK leadership is yet to officially disclose its reactions to the statements from the allied parties that would trouble the opposition party ahead of the election. It's typical in politics that the larger parties and the leader of the alliance would push the smaller parties in the coalition to contest in their symbols with the view of ensuring that the candidate is easily noticed. The larger parties will negotiate with the smaller parties to contest the polls in one symbol in their bid to prevent the loss of votes due to several symbols on the ballots and EVMs. 

One alliance and one symbol formula will let the larger parties take control of the smaller ones and their legislators in the assembly and the election commission will recognize the victories of the allied parties as the victories of the larger parties under the formula. If the VCK and MDMK contest in the DMK symbol, the election commission will recognize the victories of the allied parties as the victories of the DMK. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, VCK leader Ravikumar contested in the DMK symbol so was MDMK's candidate Ganeshmurthi. 

However, as Tamil Nadu is fast approaching the assembly polls, the VCK has now put out its intention to face the polls with its own symbol to gain recognition from the Election Commission. The parties should obtain a minimum percentage of votes in the election to get recognized by the Chief Election body. The VCK and MDMK had made their intentions to contest in their own symbols which had surfaced trouble around the DMK in its bid to build a strong alliance under its symbol of the rising sun.