JUST SPAMMING | It’s An Early Onset Of The Election Season

Like the summer or rainy season setting in ahead of time, the election season has already set in the State prematurely. Though scheduled only for the summer of 2026, the Assembly elections are all over – in mainstream media, social media, in party offices, social gatherings and above all the streets. Yes, top political honchos have already hit the streets. As one said about his rival ‘with the begging bowl.’ Going from door to door, soliciting support for his party and its allies (whoever they will be) and requesting them to sign in as members was dubbed as ‘begging,’ which sets the trend for the elections. No, not begging but the acrimony in the cacophony of campaigns.

What once was considered as hitting below the belt has now become acceptable as some politicians seem to believe that the game they are playing now is different with a different set of rules. Here, ‘hitting below the belt’ is not foul for this is not boxing but something else, say WWE, they believe. To put it otherwise, it is not the rules that are changing but the game itself. Though it could be confusing to the spectator to grasp the change, he or she gets inured to it rather fast, faster than the performer who keeps changing his tricks with the sole view to win.

So to win the Assembly elections that would come by May 2026, the top political honchos have started attacking each other. Of course, there are too many players in the arena but since each has their own game plan, the focus remains on the main fight, which, it looks, is the same in the last four decades. Even the trend on the field suggests that it is DMK and its allies vs AIADMK and its allies, though a new player, Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam, has barged in with a film actor in the lead and the usual national parties like the BJP, Congress, CPI, CPM, MDMK and the ever fighting and never winning ‘Naam Tamilar Katchi’ being very much around.

Coming to the field, DMK president M K Stalin, who is also the Chief Minister, launched two schemes aimed at the elections. One by his party called ‘Oraniyil Tamil Nadu’ that can be translated as Tamil Nadu in one team, and the other one by his government called ‘Ungaludun Stalin’ or ‘Stalin with You’ which is basically aimed at redressing grievances. His rival from the AIADMK, Edappadi K Palaniswami, was the one who likened the ‘Oraniyil Tamil Nadu’ campaign that primarily is an enrolment drive to ‘begging’ perhaps not knowing that common people treat soliciting votes as nothing but begging.

The point is that normally leaders of Stalin’s or Palaniswami’s stature step out only when the campaign heats up with the election just days away. Or, usually the campaigns will start only after the candidates are named by the parties after coalitions complete seat sharing tasks. Now, Palaniswami has embarked on a journey to capture votes without any idea about the party and candidate who will contest from the constituencies that he has trodden through. Politicians have become smarter to know that the voter has become smarter and do not require to know the candidate she is expected to vote for. The voter now stamps the ballot with the sole objective of installing his favourite leader on the Chief Minister’s chair and nothing else, the political class seem to believe.

Other parties with Chief Ministerial aspirants, too, are convinced that voters care a hoot about the credentials of the candidates they will be sending to the Assembly. The TVK and NTK are classic examples for that since their campaigns so far – yes, they have also hit the trail in a different way – only talk about the Chief Ministerial candidate or rather it is the Chief Ministerial candidates who are alone talking. Norms of yore like ideology, political stand on a particular issue and what will be the general agenda of the government do not matter for the leaders and perhaps the potential voters. The NTK, however, is different in the sense that its leaders and some cadre do send out messages on how their governance would be. Like a seemingly elderly functionary (?) who was caught on camera spewing obscenity to denigrate a popular young woman leader, whose ideology he was opposed to. He said that he will accept that woman as an adherent of the rival ideology only if she had done certain things (not worth repeating in detail) without bothering to explain how he was competent to certify someone from the rival camp and who needed his validation.

With politics stooping to such a low, it sometimes helps the voter eliminate parties in the tick list. But still there are others vying for attention, sometimes evoking laughter. Like the grand old man of Tamil Nadu politics, Vaiko, telling his violent followers to pull out the film roll from the camera of the news photographer they were assaulting. So, the digital revolution that turned photography upside down worldwide has not touched the fiery orator’s life a wee bit in any form. Also the photographer has seemingly missed out a lot for he had rushed to record the rows of empty chairs in the meeting, not knowing that people had stopped attending political meetings a long time ago and no one cared who listened to whom.