2021 TN Assembly Election Takeaways – I
The Havoc Wrought By The Three Musketeers Planted Against AIADMK
The recently concluded assembly elections in Tamil Nadu has thrown questions, challenges to secularism and national integrity. The state witnessed multi cornered fight with four alliances. Apart from AIADMK and DMK led alliances, as in the past, two more fronts one lead by T.T.T. Dhinakaran’s AMMK and the second one by actor turned politician Kamalhasan’s MNM , and the fifth one was Naam Tamilar Party , NTK, lead by actor cum crypto Christian Seemaan. The three AMMK, MNM and NTK have polled 14.46% votes acting as the spoiler all over.
Seemaan’s party NTK has nearly polled 8% votes, nearly double of what the party polled in earlier elections. He has been fighting a lone battle, with no alliance and steadily increasing his vote share. Starting as an extremist /separatist leaning movement, NTK metamorphosed into a mainstream political party , via democratic channels. He has been nominating candidates in all 234 assembly and 39 Parliament seats. This time has fielded 50% women candidates. His sworn affidavit, contrary to his expensive lifestyle, his declared total annual income for 2019-20 was Rs 73000 only – including the income of his wife. He has been making so many hilarious claims of his association with deceased leaders, including LTTE chief Prabakaran.
Why did all the political parties fail to see him as a threat? How he has been having a free run to sow secession in the guise Tamil Nationalism? What are his sources of income? Why did all the parties fail to check his growing influence among the generation next? Is it a fact many first time voters are being lured by him? How he was allowed to expand across the state? How even stricter FCRA and NGO regulation could not check inflow of funds into his parry? It is really shocking NTK has come third in many constituencies in the 2021 election. Will the main political parties in the state see the writing on the wall and act, before it’s too late?
Kamalhasan’s MNM has played spoil sports in the urban areas. In Chennai City and many urban areas MNM has greatly spoiled AIADMK chances. AMMK has polled more votes than the margin between the winner and the runner up AIADMK, in about 30 seats. In half a dozen seats where the margin was less than 1000 votes NOTA polled more than the margin of win.
2021 TN Assembly Election Takeaways – II
Two Instances Of The Bane of
The 2021 Assembly elections in WB and Kerala was summed up by some leaders as a case of “30% voters, read minorities, deciding the outcome, and the divided 70% facing the consequences. The results of TN elections in a couple of seats endorse this. Annamalai, vice president TN, BJP, an upright young IPS officer of Karnataka cadre who resigned and plunged into politics, has lost the election. He contested from Aravakurichi in Karur district, a semi urban constituency. It was one of the couple of constituencies that polled a high percentage of 85.6%. This general constituency has 2,14,000 voters of whom about 30,000 are Muslims. Muslim clusters did allow him to canvas votes initially. He promised to build houses for minorities under the Pradhan Mantri Yojana — as well as several other welfare schemes and infrastructure/industrial developments. The social media went viral with the actual voting pattern of a booth in a Muslim majority area, wherein, out of about 900 votes polled, Annamalai was got only one vote. Due to the Corona effect, the election Commission opted for one booth per 1000 voters system. It is not a coincidence that Annamalai lost the election by a margin of 26,000 votes.
In Dharapuram Reserve constituency, BJP state President Murugan contested against DMK and lost by about 1,400 votes. Here, in one booth, Jinnah Maidan, out of 577 votes polled, only one went to Murugan.
Bye election to the Thuthukudi Lok Sabha seat, caused by the death of Vasant Kumar of INC, was also held along with Assembly elections. Pon. Radhakrishnan, fondly called Ponnar, former Dy. Minister, who lost to Vasant Kumar in 2019, contested on a BJP ticket. This constituency has sizable Christian votes. Vijay Vasant, son of late Vasant Kumar, a political greenhorn, who is said to have acted in a few films, was the nominee of INC. Ponnar as a Union Minister has been nursing the constituency all through. He has brought several infrastructure projects to the state, fighting against motivated opposition; the port in Kolachel being a case in point. His election would have benefited the constituency but people voted not for Vikas. The united minority and divided majority has ensured his defeat.
