Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
political party in India
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK; Tamil pronunciation: [t̪iɾaːʋiɖɐ munːeːtrɐk kɐɻɐɡɐm]; transl. Dravidian Progressive Federation) is an Indian regional political party based in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is currently the main opposition in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
The DMK was founded on 17 September 1949 by C. N. Annadurai as a breakaway faction from the Dravidar Kazhagam, headed by Periyar. The DMK was headed by Annadurai as the general secretary from 1949 until his death on 4 February 1969. He also served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 1967 to 1969. Under Annadurai, in 1967 the DMK became the first party other than the Indian National Congress to win state-level elections with a clear majority on its own in India. M. Karunanidhi followed Annadurai as the first president of the party from 1969 until his death on 7 August 2018. He also served as the chief minister for five non-consecutive terms, in two of which he was dismissed by the Union government. After Karunanidhi's death, his son and former deputy, M. K. Stalin, succeeded as the party president and as a chief minister of Tamil Nadu from May 2021.
The DMK became the fifth-largest party in the Lok Sabha after the 2024 Indian general election.
The public source identifies “Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam” as political party in India. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dravida, Munnetra and Kazhagam.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1255973. VIAF identifies the subject as 150775078. The Library of Congress control number is n81082600. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1969, 1967 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.