Nation / Wed, 17 Apr 2024 The Indian Express

In Coimbatore, amid Annamalai buzz, Dravidian parties say it’s their battle to lose

While much of the focus on Coimbatore has to do with the BJP candidate being its state president K Annamalai, a polarising figure, the Dravidian parties in the fray have also fielded strong candidates. Ramachandran, an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, rules out a three-way contest and directs his ire at the state BJP president. He may not even know the existence of this remote village,” he tells The Indian Express at a campaign event about 10 km from Coimbatore city. The AIADMK candidate, party leaders say, had his campaign strategy shaped by Velunamni. The state BJP president was an IPS officer before he resigned in 2019.

As campaigning winds down in Tamil Nadu ahead of polling in all 39 constituencies on Friday, one of the highly anticipated battles will unfold in the cosmopolitan business hub of Coimbatore between the DMK, the AIADMK, and the BJP.

While much of the focus on Coimbatore has to do with the BJP candidate being its state president K Annamalai, a polarising figure, the Dravidian parties in the fray have also fielded strong candidates. At present, Coimbatore, which has been a difficult seat to gauge in previous elections, is held by the CPI(M), a member of the DMK-led alliance. But the AIADMK alliance, which included the BJP at the time, swept all six Assembly segments of the parliamentary constituency in the 2021 state elections, going against the pro-DMK wave that swept the rest of the state.

For the AIADMK, this is a prestige battle for its strongman S P Velumani, the most powerful figure in the party behind its chief and former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami. The AIADMK had an acrimonious exit from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) earlier this year and one of the reasons was Annamalai’s criticism of the Dravidian icons and comments about the party’s late leader Jayalalithaa.

The AIADMK candidate is 36-year-old “Singai” G Ramachandran who is banking to a large extent on the legacy of his late father “Singai” Govindaraju, a former party MLA. Ramachandran, an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, rules out a three-way contest and directs his ire at the state BJP president. “Those in Delhi believe that Annamalai has no opposition and has already won the election. He may not even know the existence of this remote village,” he tells The Indian Express at a campaign event about 10 km from Coimbatore city.

The AIADMK candidate, party leaders say, had his campaign strategy shaped by Velunamni. “Probably my age, the good name of my late father who was an MLA and the party cadre are all my strengths,” says Ramachandran, who also runs a small business called The Social Media Company.

The AIADMK candidate says the DMK is missing from the rural pockets and that Annamalai will lose “because of his arrogance”, asking why he “flaunts his IPS tag” before middle-class voters. The state BJP president was an IPS officer before he resigned in 2019.

“His IPS or my IIM Ahmedabad, such tags are insignificant. What matters is what you do in your life and how you touch people’s lives. His unnecessary aggression shows that he is scared …,” he says.

Compared to the AIADMK and BJP candidates, the DMK’s “Ganapathi” P Rajkumar is neither vocal nor outspoken. He was with the AIADMK — he has a PhD on Jayalalithaa — and served as Coimbatore mayor from 2014 to 2016. In 2020, Rajkumar moved to the DMK. Among his strengths, party insiders say, is his familiarity with Coimbatore.

DMK’s Rajkumar seen during campaigning. (Express Photo by Arun Janardhanan) DMK’s Rajkumar seen during campaigning. (Express Photo by Arun Janardhanan)

At an event at the city’s edge, the DMK candidate tells The Indian Express that the real contest in Coimbatore is between him and Ramachandran. “The DMK and our allies have a strong voter base here. We have support not only from the dominant Hindu communities but also from Christians and Muslims and roughly 18% of Dalits. It is a cosmopolitan city with people from all over India. I know this unique constituency as well as the back of my hand,” he says.

Among the DMK’s other advantages are allies such as the CPM, Dalit party VCK, and support from the city’s Muslim population, which lives in Ukkadam within the city limits, and Christians.

How the BJP campaign is going

Meanwhile, Annamalai says he is focussing on the communities that the Dravidian parties “have overlooked”, especially the “neo-middle class” in urban areas. “They may not be aspirational per se, but their children are. They want their children to have a better life, learn a third language, receive high-class education, and live in a better city,” he tells The Indian Express amid a campaign.

The BJP vote share was 55% and 49% in the 1998 and 1999 general elections when the party won the constituency in the aftermath of the Coimbatore bomb blast. Since then, with the possible exception of 2009, the BJP’s average vote share has been around 30% and the party finished runner-up the last two times. The state BJP president’s camp calculates that if he manages to swing a chunk of the floating voters based on popular appeal he stands a chance of emerging victorious.

But not all in the BJP-RSS camp are happy with the way Annamalai is running his campaign. A senior BJP leader in Coimbatore says, “It may be experimental for Delhi but we never had this much freedom for a candidate in the party. We wait and see how it evolves.”

Also read | Blending caste with faith, BJP tries to open a space in Tamil Nadu

A senior RSS leader says the campaign is largely running on Annamalai style and not that of the BJP. “While all other candidates are busy running around, he holds multiple press meets, each lasting more than an hour,” he says, adding that he estimates that the BJP candidate will win if he gets more than 35% of the votes.

But that is easier said than done. Local businessman Satya Kumar, once a supporter of the BJP’s former Coimbatore MP C P Radhakrishnan, has shifted his support to the AIADMK. “A young, fiery ex-IPS officer throwing full of hope to the middle class, but I fear he is just another fly-by-night operator,” he says.

Asked about the elections, another city businessman, S Jeevakumar, says Coimbatore has often been at the centre of scams ranging from multi-level marketing to emu farming. “Take any such frauds or scams in the state in the last few decades, origin and victims were largely from here. This city is vulnerable to grand promises. Here, people will invest believing a meagre Rs 10 can turn into Rs 10,000 in a year. People vote here based on wild calculations,” he says, adding that the same credulity may boost Annamalai’s prospects.