On an interior lane in the town of Bodinayakkanur in Theni district, in a newly built three-storey house, a stream of visitors — local DMK leaders, former AIADMK loyalists, and clusters of young strategists with laptops and booth maps — move in and out of rooms that hum with quiet urgency. At the centre sits three-time Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, or OPS as he is popularly known. OPS is attempting something that would once have seemed improbable: seeking another term from his stronghold, this time under the banner of the DMK, a rival for decades. He appears slightly uneasy at first. Having woken from a brief, post-lunch nap, he adjusts his seat, smiles faintly, the familiar red-and-white streaks of sacred ash and kumkum marking his forehead, and gets ready to take the questions.AdvertisementFor a man whose political life has been shaped under towering figures — first Jayalalithaa, then orbiting the influence of Sasikala and T T V Dhinakaran, and finally leading a failed revolt and attempt to align with the BJP — this is unfamiliar terrain. The ecosystem that once shielded him is gone. Now, in Bodinayakkanur, he is rebuilding, cautiously.“I am a basic loyalist of the party. We all came from DMK, didn’t we? … The ideology and core principles were always the same,” he begins, his tone measured, when asked about the recent change in his political life. He speaks of loyalty often, to the party, to its past, to what he calls its “original design”. For years, that loyalty was to Jayalalithaa. “When Amma was leading, whatever Amma said, that alone was clear to us,” he says. “Beyond that, we never really knew.”AdvertisementThe words are less about her now than about him.Election unlike any otherOPS is 75 and this election — his fourth consecutive contest from this region — is unlike any he has faced. Bodinayakkanur has long been an AIADMK fortress. Jayalalithaa herself contested and won here in 1989. OPS secured a hat-trick of victories in 2011, 2016, and 2021. But now, facing the formidable weight of the AIADMK’s “two leaves,” he is attempting to convert personal loyalty into political survival.Outside, the town reflects that tension. Former supporters now line up on opposing sides. AIADMK functionaries insist that cadre loyalty will hold. DMK workers, some of whom had to give up their own electoral ambitions to accommodate OPS, say they are working “without dissatisfaction”. The constituency’s layered caste arithmetic — Mukkulathor, Nadar, Naidu, Chettiyar, along with Scheduled Castes and tribes — adds another layer of unpredictability. But there is no panic in the OPS camp.For the DMK, bringing in OPS is not only about symbolism but also arithmetic. In the southern belt, where the OBC-Thevar community remains a decisive bloc, OPS still carries influence built over decades of local presence and administrative access. His entry allows the DMK to breach a social base that has historically leaned toward the AIADMK, especially in districts such as Theni, Ramanathapuram, and further south. Party strategists see him as both a vote-mobiliser and a narrative tool, someone who can weaken AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami (known as EPS). OPS is being used to sharpen that “betrayal” pitch against EPS, where old rivals are repurposed to fracture the AIADMK-NDA’s core vote bank while consolidating it, unexpectedly, for the DMK. Inside his camp office, OPS gestures toward a wall, then to his attire. He lifts the edge of his dhoti slightly, revealing its red-and-black border, the colours of the DMK. It is both subtle and dramatic. “From the day I joined, hundreds of people here in Theni and Bodi have also changed,” he says, suggesting that loyalty to symbols may not be as fixed as it once was. “People have changed.” He repeats it, almost as reassurance: “People have changed.”At another moment, he reflects on loss, not electoral, but personal. “The moment Amma died, my smile disappeared,” he says. Then, after a pause, he adds: “Only now it is coming back.” Asked if that warmth — the political and emotional shelter he once had — is being restored under M K Stalin, he does not hesitate. “The level at which Amma kept it, at that same level, now it is coming.” It is a striking statement, one that would have been inconceivable during the years when OPS fought the DMK “to the nail,” as party veterans recall.Rebuilding after setbacksOPS’s political journey has been defined by reversals. In 2017, he staged a dramatic rebellion against Sasikala, meditating at Jayalalithaa’s memorial and invoking betrayal. Many see it as a moment that sabotaged the AIADMK’s future and changed the course of Tamil Nadu politics. That failed revolt also marked the beginning of his isolation. Expelled from the AIADMK by EPS, OPS found himself without a party, then without a stable alliance, and eventually without a clear base. Now, in Bodinayakkanur, he is attempting to rebuild that base. Not through ideology, but memory and proximity.“I am not a selfish politician without public welfare,” he says, tracing his beginnings to student service in the Lions Club in the early 1970s. He speaks of Periyakulam, where his tenure as municipal chairman, he says, gave him administrative grounding. “If one becomes chairman there, you get training in everything.”There is a quiet insistence in these recollections, as though he is trying to say that the man remains the same, despite all the shifts and changes. But the ground reality is more complicated. In 2021, OPS won the seat by over 11,000 votes. In 2024, contesting as an independent in Ramanathapuram, he finished second with 3.42 lakh votes, a respectable showing but a sign of diminished command. Now, he faces not just an opponent, but the AIADMK’s “two leaves” symbol and the emotional residue it carries.His rivals frame his switch as opportunism. “How can the public respect him when he switches parties after serving three terms as CM representing the AIADMK?” asks a functionary of the Opposition party.you may likeBack in the camp office, the rooms fill up again. Privately, his supporters frame his political journey differently: one of survival. A group of young men huddle over constituency maps, marking booth-level strategies as they “know every nook and corner of Bodi”. At the entrance, a mix of DMK workers and former AIADMK men wait for OPS to begin the evening campaign.It is around 5 pm. As OPS steps out and the loyalists line up with folded hands, he watches them quietly. When asked about the “change” that happened, he says there is nothing to correct. “EPS has destroyed the party; there is nobody there in that party. And nothing much has changed in my political life after joining the DMK,” he says, suggesting his decision to join his one-time rival was like a homecoming. Outside, Bodinayakkanur waits. Inside, OPS adjusts his dhoti once more and prepares to step out into a campaign that is as much about reclaiming a seat as it is about reclaiming relevance.