Tamil Nadu: Fight For By-Elections Turn Acrimonious

Apart from the TVK that had fielded candidates who actually caused the polls by resigning their seats within days of winning them with a view to defecting to the ruling party and the AIADMK, on whose ticket the two candidates originally won the elections, the Communist parties are reaching out to the people seeking their votes.

With a defining slogan that the Left parties were the real alternative to the Dravidian parties and the TVK, the CPI and the CPM that have nominated common Left-wing candidates are now asking the voters for their support even as the top leaders - TVK's C Joseph Vijay, DMK president M K Stalin, AIADMK’s Edappadi K Palaniswami and Naam Tamilar Katchi chief coordinator Seeman - are all gearing to campaign in the constituencies.

The DMK, whose candidates for the by-elections are I Paranthaman for Madurantakam and S Sukanya for Dharapuram, is hoping to win the seats though the seat were earlier won by the AIADMK, whose winners Maragatham Kumaravel and P Sathyabhama have been now nominated by the TVK.

A campaign has been launched against Maragatham Kumaravel and Sathyabhama accusing them of betraying the people by throwing out the seats and defecting to the TVK. Palaniswami has also asked his party workers to work hard and recapture the seats that were AIADMK bastions.

The TVK wants people to elect the same candidates they had voted earlier in the general elections though they have now crossed over to the ruling party from the AIADMK.

While the CPM State Secretary P Shanmughan made an appeal on Tuesday when he announced P Sugandhi of CPM for Madhurantakam and Lakshmanan of CPI for Dharapuram as the common candidates for the October 6 by-elections, the CPI’s national youth wing, AIYF, said on Wednesday that the Dravidian parties had failed to usher in equality and social justice.

The AIYF said that though the Dravidian parties did usher in some progress in the past 60 years, they could not fix economic inequality and called upon the youth and students to support the Left candidates.

Amidst this acrimonious fight between the two Dravidian majors, the ruling TVK and the Left parties that are contesting without the support of the Dravidian parties, the Naam Tamilar Katchi is also in the race. By fielding K Janaki Raman in Maduranthakam and Karthika in Dharapuram, the NTK claims that it was the real alternative in the State.

So as the date draws to a close for polling, the parties are pulling in different directions, each of them staking the claim for the two seats of Madurantakam and Dharapuram as each have their own stakes in the State’s politics.

For the TVK this is the first by-election after assuming power and has to prove that its popularity has not declined, while the AIADMK has to regain its own constituencies, the DMK has to show that it was capable of a comeback, the Left parties have to prove that they are the real alternative to the DMK and TVK and the NTK that it is still in the reckoning.