Chennai: The AIADMK (Amma) led by V.K. Sasikala and the AIADMK (Puratchithalaivi Amma) of former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam are leaving no stone unturned to enthuse the party’s traditional voters in RK Nagar, especially women, to support them at the polling booths on April 12. There is palpable apprehension in both the camps that the people might ignore the bypoll in the absence of the charismatic leader Jayalalithaa, who had represented the constituency until her death on 5 December, 2016, and the magnetic draw of the ‘Two-Leaves’ symbol.
Jayalalithaa had polled 97,218 votes in 2016 to defeat DMK’s Shimla Muthuchozhan (57,673) and retain the seat she had secured in the by-election the previous year. It was a huge drop from the 2015 score (1,60,432) but then that tally had been possible because the adversary then was the CPI’s C. Mahendran (9710) and there was a massive effort by the ruling party to get its Amma back into the Assembly after her acquittal by the Karnataka high court in the disproportionate assets case.
P. Vetrivel had vacated the seat to make way for her; he is the ‘pillar-of-strength’ beside the AIADMK (Amma) candidate TTV Dinakaran, who is campaigning wearing a ‘thoppi’, the symbol allotted by the Election Commission following the freezing of ‘Two Leaves’. His faction spokesperson Nanjil Sampath says it would be easy for TTV to familiarise his poll symbol because people would connect his ‘thoppi’ with the ‘thoppi’ worn by party founder MGR in his 1966 film, Anbey Vaa.
Adversaries, however, are telling the RK Nagar voters that all they can expect from the nephew of Sasikala, who is in a Karnataka jail for corruption, is “thoppi on your heads”, meaning he would take them for a ride.
It would be impossible for septuagenarian E. Madhusudhanan, an old hand at RK Nagar having won in 1991, to try similar easy ways of popularising his symbol by carrying an ‘Electric Pole’ on his frail frame. But then, the EC symbol for his AIADMK (Puratchithalaivi Amma) depicts a twin electric pole, so his clever campaign managers are waving their two fingers in a ‘V’ sign that could mean the ‘twin electric pole’ as well as the famous ‘Two Leaves’ symbol.
Even if the AIADMK factions succeed in bringing the traditional ‘Two Leaves’ voters to the booths, they can at best only share the 97,000 votes got by Jayalalithaa as it might be real tough attracting new supporters in the prevailing post-Jaya turmoil. Besides, political novice Deepa is also in the fray hoping to get a chunk of her aunt Jayalalithaa’s vote-bank; which could be a near-impossible dream to materialise, going by local reports. This split of the AIADMK vote can only help the rival DMK to win comfortably in RK Nagar, as past poll scores have shown that it would need at least 60,000 votes to defeat the DMK and 40,000-50,000 votes to secure a decent second place.
Political analysts opine that the AIADMK factions could bring most of their ‘cadres’ to the booths, but a section of the party voters could stay away. Political commentator Govi. Lenin said, “Most of the AIADMK cadre will certainly vote in the bypolls, since they will be individually approached by the two factions. But the AIADMK voters could keep away as Jayalalithaa and the ‘Two Leaves’ symbol is absent.”
There is a perceived detachment among the AIADMK voters, whose disinterest in voting could bring down the support for both the factions, whose campaigners are working overtime to retrieve lost ground. While Madhusudhanan has the support of most of the party functionaries in four out of the seven wards in the constituency, TTV has the party lieutenants in the three other wards, besides the help of the local strongman Vetrivel.
Dinakaran has gone for micro level field management by splitting each ward into smaller segments and entrusting them to loyalists for ‘effective monitoring’.
