The RK Nagar by-election scheduled for December 21 took a curious turn by Sunday though the last date for filing of nomination is only on Monday.
Vaiko, leader of the MDMK, who has been a staunch critic of M Karunanidhi and MK Stalin sprang a surprise on Sunday by announcing that his party would support Maruthu Ganesh, the DMK candidate.
It is after a long gap of 13 years Vaiko is joining the DMK-led front. In the 2004 lok Sabha election, Vaiko’s MDMK was a constituent of the DMK-led Rainbow Alliance which had obliterated the AIADMK by winning all the 39 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu.
The by-election from RK Nagar would be a five-cornered contest with the BJP and popular film star Vishal joining the fray. Though the BJP is not counted as a force to reckon with in the constituency, the party has opted to field Karu Nagarajan, who had joined the party just before the 2016 Assembly election.
But what surprised the AIADMK and political observers was the decision of Vishal to enter the scene as an independent candidate. Vishal is a pro-active film actor and producer who had created a sensation in 2015 by leading a group of film personalities to victory in the election held to the South Indian Film Artists Association. What stood out in that election was the defeat suffered by veteran actors like Sarat Kumar who had the support of the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
V Anbazhagan, veteran commentator and a specialist in AIADMK affairs, said the candidature of Vishal was a tacit move by the DMK. “The candidature of Vishal is detrimental to the prospects of E Madhusudanan, the AIADMK candidate. Both Vishal and Madhusudanan are Telugu speaking and there is every chance of Vishal poaching the votes which should have gone to Madhusudanan in normal circumstances,” said Anbazhagan.
He further stated that there was nothing unusual in such acts of “short circuiting” by political rivals. “The People’s Welfare Front led by the DMDK and which had the CPI-M, the CPI, the VCK and TMC as constituents was the handiwork of the AIADMK. It was the PWF’s presence which caused the defeat of many DMK candidates in the 2016 election,” said Anbazhagan.
The AIADMK has to win this election to ensure its stability in the legislative assembly. The Election Commission of India has ruled that the party has only 111 MlAs in the House of 234. But the last date for withdrawal of nomination paper is on December 7 and anything can happen during the next four days.
The Edappadi Palaniswamy Government is surviving because of the stay in convening the House in the backdrop of the legal battle taking place in the Madras High Court over the disqualification of the 18 MlAs owing allegiance to the ousted general secretary VK Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dinakaran. The court hearing would last till December 20 and the fate of the government s dependent on the verdict to be pronounced by the Madras High Court.