Chennai: PMK leader Dr Anbumani Ramadoss’ Narendra Modi-style election campaign ever since February 2015 to grab the attention of voters well beyond its Vanniyar vote base seems to have failed.
The defeat of PMK in all the 232 assembly seats is all the more embracing with its chief ministerial candidate Anbumani loosing in the Pennagaram constituency falling under his Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency. He lost by a margin of 18,446 votes to DMK’s Inbasekaran. Beside, the party ended runner up only in three other seats – Edappadi, Jayankondam and Pappireddippatti.
Anbumani’s effort to distance himself from the party’s Vanniyar caste tag and win over urban voters to emerge as an alternative to AIADMK and DMK ended in vain. According to the Election Commission’s data, the party has secure a mere 5.3 per cent vote share losing all the seats it contested. Whereas in 2011 Assembly election, the party in alliance with DMK secured 5.2 per cent vote share and won three seats.
Political analyst Bernard D Sami said that PMK should explore joining alliance or forming a new alliance to take forward the alternative politics instead of contesting alone. He said that PMK could not win a single seat by projecting Anbumani as its CM candidate and adopting newer campaigning methods to become an alternative to Dravidian majors.
“You cannot become a third force in the state after AIADMK and DMK by making the election a six cornered contest. The multicornered contest will help the Dravidian majors to win the elections on thin margin,” he noted. The way forward for the PMK is to identify its alliance partners to emerge as an alternative force, he said.
