Chennai: R.K. Nagar will see a triangular contest amongst the same candidates who had fought the aborted April byelection. And they will be carrying the burden of their respective parties out to prove a point.
While the DMK will be attempting to upset a record of ruling party victories in bypolls, AIADMK veteran E. Madhusudhanan will be striving to establish his party's supremacy in this constituency and retain the seat held twice by Puratchi Thalaivi Amma. Snapping at his heel will be TTV. Dhinakaran, who is trying to protect the influence of the Sasikala family and destabilise the EPS government.
Fisheries minister D. Jayakumar might have bravely proclaimed that their only rival was the DMK and not TTV. But the AIADMK cannot afford to ignore Dhinakaran's game plan as he is aware of every trick in their election bag and would either copy them or counter them. His game plan is not to win the election but to deny victory to Madhusudhanan and discredit the party of squandering the goodwill that Jayalalithaa had com-manded.
For the ruling AIADMK it is a prestigious battle it cannot afford to lose. As the ruling party it has to maintain the winning streak ruling dispensations have had for the last two decades. A win will help stabilise its precarious position when it is short of a majority and also justify the Election Commission ruling recognising it as the official AIADMK. It will also in one stroke derail Dhinakaran's challenge and M.K. Stalin's dream of a midterm election.
The AIADMK's winning chances may also be hobbled by bitter infighting within its own camp. But for the insistence of O. Pannnerseelvam, the dominant EPS faction would have picked someone else as the party's candidate instead of Madhusudhanan. Now OPS has to ensure that the internal politics of the AIADMK does not trip his candidate. It is an open secret that the OPS faction has felt shortchanged after its merger with the bigger EPS group.
With the AIADMK engaged in its own internal war and also faced with a rebel in TTV, the DMK appears to be sitting pretty. A divided AIADMK has always helped the DMK win, though such a scenario last happened way back in 1989. The DMK will also be helped by the anti-incumbency of the present government and the absence of a charismatic vote catcher like Jayalalithaa. Winning the byelection will also help M.K. Stalin consolidate his hold in the party.
Unlike in April when Dhinakaran was faced with persistent anger against Sasikala and was unable to even feature her photos in his campaign material, this time he has not been dragged down by such negativity. Instead he will be seen as challenging the AIADMK's popular 'Two Leaves' symbol which may not go down well with AIADMK voters. In fact the ruling party will go to town about the fact that Amma's symbol was being opposed as much by TTV as the DMK, and thus paint him as a lackey of the DMK. For an electorate so used to a contest between the DMK's 'Rising Sun' and the AIADMK's 'Two Leaves', Dhinakaran's 'Hat' might prove to be a nonstarter.
The other imponderable will be the use of money power that the parties might resort to this time too. The EC had cancelled the April 12 byelection on that count once and is keen to prevent a repeat of Tamil Nadu's shameful practice of 'cash for vote'. So this time the contestants might be wary of resorting to flexing their monetary muscle.
The EC has also strictly warned everyone that the play of money would only result in one more cancellation. If it happens it would definitely not be in honour of Jayalalithaa's memory.
