Tirunelveli has 11 assembly constituencies. It's a hotbed of caste and communal politics. Even the layman on the streets tells you the caste and communal combination of his constituency.
Rediff.com passed through this district and realised how important caste and community is to rural India.
N.Sekar is a brick manufacturer in Palayamcottai. In this constituency both the candidates of the two leading fronts led by the Anna Dravida Munethra Kazhagam and Dravida Munethra Kazhagam are Muslims. Sekar says that this is with an eye on Melapalayam, which falls within this assembly seat.
There is a big concentration of Muslims in Palayamcotti. The Dravida Munethra Kazhagam won the seat last time with a Muslim candidate and the ADMK had given the seat to a Muslim party just to divide that community vote. The Nadars here would be swayed by Sharad Kumar's decision to quit the DMK and go to the ADMK.
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A lawyer Rajendran also feels that the DMK is better placed because its current legislator who is standing again has done a lot of good work in the area. As for taking the contest to a feverish level. This could only happen if the DMK took on the ADMK directly.
In Tirunelveli the ADMK has fielded its sitting MLA who is also the industries minister in the outgoing government. It is ironical that the industries minister could not start a single industry in his own constituency. The only industry that started during his tenure in the neighboring Alangulam constituency is the controversial Coke plant.
Up against the ADMK minister is a DMK man. He is the Union Chairman of 15 panchayats in this area. He seems bent on making a clown of himself in his bid to attract attention to himself. One day he goes canvassing on a horse and the next day on a bullock cart.
There is a concentration of Christians in the Palayamcottai area that will not vote for the ADMK. Not only have they not forgiven for her anti-conversion act which has since been repealed but also for the fact that Government aid to their minority educational institutes have been withheld or delayed.
A bureaucrat in the Collectorate ominously adds 'No one is ready to forget the humiliating dismissal of 2 lac Government employees or the death of 80 road workers'. The DMK had appointed thousands of road workers who were responsible for a segment of the state roads in their area. The ADMK had sacked them. Later they were re instated a month before the elections were anounced. In the meanwhile 80 of them died.
When government employees had gone on strike early in her tenure, Jayalalitha had sacked over a lac of them in one single stroke. They too were later re-instated.
Gangaikondan falls in the Alangulam assembly area. Here the daughter of a murdered former DMK minister is standing for elections. She is a doctor. Standing against her is an ADMK candidate. Dr. Krishnasamy's Puthiya Tamilagam has a following here. Not enough to win the seat but enough to make a difference in the final count.
Gangaikondan was lately in the news as Coke had put up a bottling plant here. Surprisingly this is not an issue that will effect the results of the elections. This is because supporters and detractors of the plant are on both sides.
The exception to this is Alavandakulam village which is close to the Coke plant. This village of 2000 voters have declared that they do not like the Coke plant. Thus they would not vote for the ADMK that brought in this plant.
How will these villagers vote then? Locals again give a caste count. There are 800 Yadavas who will vote for the DMK and the rest belong to the Schedule Caste and thus would vote for the Puthiya Tamilagam.
The advantage that the ADMK candidate here has is that he is a local while the DMK candidate is practicing in Chennai.
Elsewhere in the district the former controversial Speaker of the Tamil Nadu assembly P.H.Pandian is establishing his own dynasty. He is a member of Parliament. His son was an MLA and has been re nominated to contest in the same seat. His wife is the Vice-Chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundranar University and his brother is a rebel Congress candidate in the neighboring constituency. MS University is in this district.
In Radhapuram Constituency the DMK has put up its candidate. A Congress rebel Selvaraj filed his nomination as an independent. What the DMK did was get 6 other Selvaraj's to file their nominations here. They all have different initials. As they say 'The more the merrier'.
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