Welcome to Sivaganga, India’s “banking constituency” dotted with more than 120 branches of nationalised banks and an equal number of ATMs. Here, a son is fighting the anti-incumbency factor against his high-profile father, P Chidambaram, the 68-year-old Union Finance Minister.
While PC has joined the big list of Congress leaders who backed out from contesting the polls, he succeeded in bringing in his son Karti as the Congress candidate in this VIP constituency.
Though Chidambaram has been representing Sivaganga since 1984 (except from 1999 to 2004), the constituency continues to be backward. There are no industries worth the name though the Finance Minister claims he was instrumental in bringing a unit of the public sector BHEl and an Indane lPG bottling unit.
“Both these units have not benefitted the local population in any way,” said Mohammed Meeran, an autorickshaw driver in the constituency.
What welcomes visitors to Sivaganga is the sight of housewives quarrelling for drinking water at Aathikkadu Village. “There was no water supply for the last 20 days here. We were forced to walk ten km daily to fetch a pot of drinking water,” said 65-year-old Valli.
Pathinettan, another villager, told The Pioneer that there are 200 houses in the village and none of them get drinking water. “Whenever we approach P Chidambaram’s office, we are told that supplying water is the responsibility of the Panchayat and he does not have any role in it,” complained Vijaya, a housewife.
Karti Chidambaram, the 42-year-old foreign educated son of the Finance Minister introduces himself to the voters as a person with global outlook. “I don’t have caste, creed or religion. I’ll build sports stadiums in all panchayats of this constituency,” he tells villagers who gather in large numbers mainly to get a glimpse of the cavalcade which includes many imported cars.
Papa Chidambaram blames Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for all the ills plaguing the constituency. Power cuts, water shortage and unemployment are the result of the Dravidian misrule, he charges. He is silent about hectares and hectares of barren lands spread throughout the stretch between Sivaganga and Madurai.
“The area has the potential to be Tamil Nadu’s power house. Since sunlight is available 365 days in a year, Sivaganga could have been turned into a solar energy park,” said GM Pillai, director-general, World Institute of Sustainable Energy, a renewable energy think tank.
Pillai and his team of scientists had submitted reports about the solar energy potential of the constituency to the Union Government, but they are all gathering dust in various ministries while Tamil Nadu continues to reel under severe power shortage.
“There were nearly 100 textile mills in Sivaganga some 25-years-ago. All are gone. All machinery was sold as scrap and buildings were demolished,” said H Raja, the BJP candidate who is riding on a Narendra Modi wave.
“Sivaganga, with its characteristic Chettinadu landscape and heritage has the potential to be a great tourist attraction. But there is no infrastructure worth its name except for the roads built during the NDA regime of 1998 to 2004,” pointed out Raja, a chartered-accountant-turned-politician.
“We have more bank branches and ATMs than ration shops and hospitals,” said KN Arunagiri, a former local Congress leader who is campaigning for Raja. He said he was forced to leave the party because of the arrogance of the Chidambarams. “There is a strong Narendra Modi wave all over Tamil Nadu which would throw out many surprises in this election,” said Arunagiri.
Both the AIADMK and the BJP camps claim that the fight is between them at Sivaganga. MK Alagiri, the elder son of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, who was ousted from the party recently, reportedly extended his best wishes to Raja, an old friend. The DMK candidate S Durai Raj is keeping a low profile while Karti, the Congress candidate expects that the consolidation of the Christian and Muslim votes would help him out. People who know Chidambaram well say that though he has set apart Rs 50-crore to ensure the smooth sailing of his son, the heat wave across the constituency is capable of sinking the Congress boat.