By-elections in Tamil Nadu do not generate much enthusiasm among the electorate as it is a foregone conclusion that the ruling party wins the bout without much hassle. But the April 12 by-election from RK Nagar Assembly constituency, necessitated by the demise of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, has become the cynosure of all eyes as the multi-cornered contest is generating a lot of sound and fury between the contestants.
The Election Commission of India shunting out the Chennai City Police Commissioner and the Returning Officer of RK Nagar speaks lot about the kind of heat and dust caused by the high-pitch electioneering.
The split in the ruling AIADMK has been formalised by the ECI which froze the name and symbol (Two leaves) of the party. The two factions headed by the jailed VK Sasikla and former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam have been given the names AIADMK (Amma) and the AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) respectively. While Dinakaran (nephew of Sasikala) has been allotted the symbol of Hat, the Panneerselvam faction’s candidate E Madhusoodanan has been allocated the symbol Electric Post.
This the first election in Tamil Nadu after the exit of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi from the political centre-stage. The RK Nagar was seen as a fortress of the AIADMK. Jayalalithaa, when she contested the by-poll in September 2015, won by a huge margin of more than 1,50,000 votes.
But in the by-poll scheduled for April 12, there are two contestants from the AIADMK fighting for the legacy of Jayalalithaa while the DMK has fielded a local guy who is quite popular with the electorate.
Though Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Patrick Madhavan is contesting as the representative of MAD Party, she is not expected to make any impact in the final outcome. The fight is between the three candidates representing the AIADMK and the DMK.
The BJP has fielded Gangai Amaran, younger brother of music maestro Ilayaraja. But the BJP has not made any impact in the past elections from the constituency and it will definitely end up as an also ran. The Congress is piggy riding on the shoulders of the DMK, with which it has a strong electoral alliance. The Congress is yet to recover from the shock defeat it faced in the 1967 Assembly election. Since then the Congress survived in Tamil Nadu only because of the life support system offered either by the AIADMK or the DMK.
The BJP was never a force to reckon with in Tamil Nadu. It continues to be like that even after the exit of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi from the State’s political landscape. “There are no leaders of national stature in Tamil Nadu BJP except Subramanian Swamy. What the central leadership should do is to find out the possibility of having an electoral alliance with the AIADMK and make the party take strong roots in the State,” said a senior RSS leader. The leader, on condition of anonymity pointed out that there was a firm belief among the electorate that the AIADMK and the BJP were natural allies. “Both Panneerselvam and Palaniswamy, though belonging to the opposite factions of the AIADMK, have not said anything inimical to the BJP till date,” he pointed out.