The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) polled its highest number of votes in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, winning five seats to the Parliament. That year it received more than 2.2 million votes. In the last two elections, this figure has come down to 1.7 million votes. In the 14th Lok Sabha it had six seats, and in the 2009 elections it failed to win even a single seat in the Parliament.

In 2006 assembly elections, the PMK won 18 of the 234 seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly. All eyes are now on the party, watching how many seats it will win in 2011 assembly elections. In 2006, the PMK was in a Congress-DMK alliance. The electorate is now keenly waiting to see which alliance it finally chooses; the DMK-led one or the AIADMK led one.

In his book on 'Ethnicity and Populist Mobilisation' Narendra Subramanian says that since the 1960s, 70% of votes in Tamil Nadu was shared by the DMK and ADMK. However, this figure fell after 1989, following the rise of the PMK and Vaiko's Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The scholar points out that the PMK was able to gain "greater electoral support" because it was able to link its "militant ethnic position" to "backward casteism" and due to the rise of the Lankan Tamil secessionist movement in the '80s and '90s. In 1996, the PMK got more than 4.5% of the votes in Tamil Nadu.

While the Lankan Tamil's cause is a failed effort in 2010, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (Party of Toiling People) is more focused now on adopting a "militant ethnic position" to support its "backward casteism" agenda.

PMK's founder Dr S Ramadoss, a physician by profession, at first set up the Vanniyar Sangam, (a Vanniyar community federation) with a strong support base in the northern districts of Tamil Nadu. In July-August 1987, the Vanniyar Sangam cut huge trees on the national highways, to demand 20% reservation for the Vanniyar community in employment and ducation institutions. The community clashed with the police and a dozen people are said to have died in police firing. The government at that time conceded to the Vanniyar demand.

Buoyed by the success, in 1989, Dr S Ramadoss converted this support base into a party, the PMK. By Papri Sri Raman The PMK relied on its Vanniyar caste group support for all its electoral wins in the late '90s. It never bothered to expand its support base into other communities and caste groups and limited itself into remaining less than a regional party, with a waning support base now.

Its tactic included childish symbolisms – PMK cadre painted out road signs in English at a time when Tamil Nadu was desperately searching for foreign investment, it attacked superstar Rajnikanth's followers and burned his posters, disrupted his shooting and showing of his films for reasons like smoking on screen, and for films with English titles.

For cutting down trees, the party made amends at the turn of the century by floating the NGO 'Pasumai Thaayagam' (Green Motherland) involved in environment protection, sustainable development and a consultant participant in UN-ECOSOC. Hopefully the trees have forgiven it. Despite its efforts, electoral successes have been only sporadic for Dr S Ramadoss and his party, which is now more known for being an unreliable ally.

It is to be remembered that, in the 2001 assembly polls, the PMK won no seat. Between 1999 and 2001, the PMK was riddled with corruption charges against leaders like E Ponnusamy, a Union Minister then, A K Moorthy, G Raviraj, K Shanmugam, party president G K Mani, and wives and sons of several leaders among others.

In May 2009, the PMK fielded J Guru or Kaduvetti Guru, a controversial leader, from Tiruvannamalai. He lost to D Venugopal of the DMK; but that the PMK fielded Guru told the voters much. Guru, president of the powerful Vanniyar Sangam, was in July 2008, arrested on charges of murdering a former PMK member who had defected to the AIADMK. He was later granted bail. The electorate rejected the PMK despite Dr Anbumani Ramadoss being a successful Union Minister.

For 2011, the PMK's call is for a "separate reservation for members of the Vanniyar community from the quota allocated to the most backward community (MBC)".

Even on June 21, 2010 Dr S Ramadoss told an audience of the PMK and the Vanniyar Sangam wanted "internal reservation". His community had fought to obtain the Most Backward Class status, but data showed that from the 20 per cent medical seats reserved for the MBCs, Vanniyars had got only around 9.5 per cent. Similar data had been obtained in other educational and employment activities, he said and called for a caste-wise census to determine the "backwardness of the community".

In a resolution earlier in June, the PMK claimed that 30% of Tamil Nadu's population is from Vanniyar caste groups. "These groups have not benefit much in the 20% reservation for MBCs as more and more castes have been included in the list of MBCs", the PMK resolution said. (Going by this account, keeping out the below 18s, the PMK vote bank should be at least 10 million strong.)

In a rapidly globalising world, will a Tamil Nadu moving towards 21st century see eye-to-eye with the PMK on casteism? The upcoming assembly poll will surely tell the PMK's constituency how relevant casteism will be in the years to come.