Soon after leading the DMK front to victory in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections in May, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin announced that the DMK government’s work would not only make people who voted for it happy, but also push others to ponder why they did not vote for the alliance. Since the party had won a landslide in the north and central regions and put up a decent show in the south, it was quite clear that the “others” that Mr. Stalin was referring to were voters in the western belt, where the AIADMK retained most seats. In fact, had it not been for the endorsement of voters of Coimbatore, Salem, Tiruppur, Erode, Namakkal and Dharmapuri, the AIADMK would not have been able to return to power in 2016 even under Jayalalithaa.
The DMK had focused its energies on penetrating the AIADMK fortress much earlier but the success that it enjoyed in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls could not be replicated in the Assembly elections for many reasons. Therefore, Mr. Stalin accommodated five MLAs from the western region in his first Cabinet. He then launched the Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam (health care at doorsteps) scheme from Krishnagiri and conducted an investors’ meet in Coimbatore last month.
A few days ago, while addressing a meeting to induct AIADMK cadres from Dharmapuri, Mr. Stalin said that the district was no longer a weak turf for the DMK. The cadres were supporters of former AIADMK Minister, P. Palaniappan, who joined the DMK post-polls. In fact, the marginal shift in favour of the DMK in the Kongu belt has been possible largely by inducting AIADMK leaders into the DMK’s ranks. It began a decade ago with the arrival of S. Muthusamy, a Minister in the M.G. Ramachandran cabinet who was retained by Jayalalithaa in her ministry. The big catch in recent times is V. Senthil Balaji, who hails from Karur, a central district that is contiguous with the Kongu belt. His inclusion in the DMK and later in the government with a plum portfolio raised many eyebrows since Mr. Stalin had earlier spearheaded a campaign against Mr. Senthil Balaji when the latter was Transport Minister in the Jayalalithaa cabinet. The party’s previous strongman in Karur, K.C. Pallani Shamy, proved ineffective, so the party had to cast aside its prejudices against Mr. Senthil Balaji, a Gounder, and induct him. The Minister started delivering from the word go. The DMK also roped in Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, a well-known face in the Kongu region, but he could not win the election.
But the challenges remain manifold for the DMK. For the socially and economically empowered Gounders who control many industries in the Kongu region, AIADMK co-coordinator Edappadi K. Palaniswami is a son of the soil. He had risen to the position of Chief Minister — the second from the community after P. Subbarayan, the premier of Madras Presidency. It was probably the same caste factor that favoured the AIADMK even when there were serious corruption allegations against former Minister S.P. Velumani.
The Kongu region is also gravitating towards the BJP, a process that started in a small way after the Coimbatore bomb blasts in 1998. Even though Arunthathiyars, a section of Dalits, are at loggerheads with the Gounders, both communities remain a strong base of the AIADMK and the BJP. The BJP did what was unthinkable, first by appointing L. Murugan, an Arunthathiyar, the party State president and later inducting him into the Union Cabinet. Former IPS officer, K. Annamalai, a Gounder, is now his successor in the party.
The DMK, however, is confident that a “proactive” Mr. Stalin will tilt the fortunes in its favour. Industrialists who are upset with the increase in GST are happy that the industrial climate in the State is improving. The next urban local body polls could shed more light on the voters’ pulse.
kolappan.b@thehindu.co.in
.jpg?w=600)
