JUST SPAMMING| By-Elections Bring Back Normality to Polls

Among the plethora of reasons for which the hustings for the by-elections in Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly constituencies would be historic and memorable is that it brought back, or at least gave a hope of bringing back, the original texture, feel, spirit and culture of elections in Tamil Nadu when we thought that we have lost it all to social media and its machinations. Despite the social media still fuelling the behind the screen campaigns and also setting the political narrative, the by-elections made the top head honchos of various parties reaching out to the voters physically.

Unusual to by-elections in the State, this time around so many party heads descended on the two constituencies underlining the importance of election rallies and speeches. Normally, in by-elections, the outcome would be pre-determined in the sense that there would be very little scope for speculations or change of fortunes. But this time, the first set of by-elections under the new TVK regime has given rise to too many conjectures. To start with, the polls coming just over four months after the general elections, is itself a strange phenomenon in the history of the State. Normally such by-elections would come about if the elected candidate passes away or if a candidate with multiple victories vacates a seat to retain another.

But in the present case, perhaps for the first time in history, the winners in the general elections are contesting again under the banner and symbol of another party after voluntarily giving up their seats. It was the feature that distinguished the two by-elections, giving rise to the question if the people vote for the candidates or the party that they represented. Now, the results of by-elections will give the answer. If the vote in the month of May was for the candidates, then the ruling TVK will win both seats but if the support had been for the party then the TVK candidates will bite the dust. So now there is a possibility of the results bucking the usual trend of the ruling party candidates, in view of their advantageous situation, winning by-elections hands down.

It is that strange situation of ruling party candidates staring at an uncertain electoral outcome despite winning the same seats just four months earlier that has turned the fight more intense and a bit acrimonious, besides leading to the return to traditional vote-getting methods at the ground level. At the roadshow of Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay in Madurantakam, age-old gimmicks were on display. Vijay who normally maintains a safe distance while hobnobbing with the common people in the open, be it his film fans or political admirers, mixed freely with the hoi poi at Madurantakam, one of the two constituencies going to polls on October 6. He even spoke to a farmer tilling the field with a tractor and got into the driver’s seat of the tilling machine and drove through the slushy field.

The Chief Minister getting into the tractor of a faceless farmer with several other farmers working in the adjacent paddy fields looking at him from close range was a scene straight out of the political photo albums of a bygone era. Leaders of the past always allowed followers to get close to them without letting the grim-looking gunmen in dull uniforms play spoilsport. That bonhomie was in the wane of late, particularly after Vijay came into the political scene. But the by-elections saw a reversal of the trend with the common people getting their importance in the campaigns not just that of the Chief Minister but that of the other leaders, too.

The crowds that gathered for the public meeting of former Chief Minister M K Stalin at Dharapuram, the other constituency that is going to polls, too, was unprecedented, going by modern political trends under which most people prefer to stay at home before television sets or just look into their smartphones to keep track of the news developments. The manner in which the former Chief Minister addressed the gathering, it became clear that the crowd did not comprise local voters but party supporters who had come from all over the State. That is a return of an old practice. Party functionaries and leaders from all over the State would congregate at the constituency where by-elections were held to cheer the local campaigners and also influence the voters.

Elections in later years proved that such congregations were redundant since there were other means of influencing the voters like reaching out to them through social media or television channels or newspaper advertisements. That uploading of ‘reels’ could be a better way of influencing voters became evident from the general elections in May. In fact in that election, many people did not even know the name of - or had not seen - the candidate they voted for. All that was needed was the endorsement of the charismatic leader of the party, which could be done easily through ‘reels’ or other social media tools, for a candidate to win the election. That was what many people thought.

When door-to-door campaigns, candidates striking a personal rapport with voters and party local functionaries instilling confidence in people through public meetings were considered passe and made to look like relics with no relevance in modern elections, the latest by-elections changed the perception and even senior leaders like Stalin went to campaign in by-elections, whose results are inconsequential.