TN turns heads with Firebrand Annamalai’s Coimbatore clash

The battlefield in the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency gleams with an unusual brilliance as summer comes to an end. There are two causes. First, K Annamalai, a former IPS officer who is now a politician and the state president of Tamil Nadu for the BJP, has joined the race. Second, ten years after the CPM left the seat, the DMK nominated soft-spoken Ganapathy P Rajkumar, a former Coimbatore Corporation mayor, with the express purpose of using all of its resources to destroy the BJP.

 

The fact that P R Natarajan of the CPM easily won the seat in 2019 with more than 1.79 lakh votes may give the impression that winning it is impossible for a first-time candidate. However, in the five segments that make up this LS constituency, it shifted from tip to toe in favor of AIADMK in the 2021 assembly elections. The alliance with the AIADMK may even be responsible for the win of BJP candidate Vanathi Srinivasan from Coimbatore South, the sixth assembly seat, in a three-cornered race where she soundly defeated Kamal Haasan.

Even though firebrand Annamalai was first hesitant to run for Lok Sabha, she eventually consented to the party’s choice. He lost the Aravakurichi assembly seat to the DMK by 24,816 votes in 2021, but he is making every effort to win back support for BJP and its allies candidates around the state by visiting every part of the constituency. Young people and those seeking an alternative to the two Dravidian parties see him as a bold and uncorrupted leader. To cross the line, however, would it be sufficient?

Does Balaji’s absence hurt the DMK’s chances?

The DMK seeks minority votes and the backing of partners like the CPI and CPM, which have influence over the working class, while the BJP seeks the support of a substantial portion of North India’s population as well as votes from Hindu organizations. However, the AIADMK benefits from a conventional vote bank. The head of the AIADMK’s IT branch, Singai G Ramachandran, is counting on party powerhouse S P Velumani and five MLAs, but the DMK will sorely miss the presence of imprisoned former minister V Senthil Balaji, who was instrumental in the party’s success in the Kongu belt local body elections.

Given the high level of education of all three candidates (Ramachandran, Annamalai, and Rajkumar have PhDs and are II M graduates respectively), Coimbatore voters, who have a literacy rate over 90%, anticipated a civil election discussion. Unfortunately, they saw somebody pouring mud. Soon after the BJP declared Annamalai as its candidate for Coimbatore, T R B Rajaa, a minister for the DMK, said, “Goat biryani is getting ready.” When Annamalai said that Ramachandran was in via the MLA quota, the AIADMK candidate sharply retaliated, claiming that his father passed away when he was just eleven years old and requesting an apology from the BJP state president.

Additionally, Annamalai said that he would not accept a single penny in exchange for a vote. However, the opposition launched a vicious assault on him when a flying squad in Chennai took $4 million that belonged to the BJP’s candidate for Tirunelveli. Annamalai accused the DMK of providing Rs 2,000 in cash and gold earrings to voters who were 85 years of age or older and were voting from home. It is unclear whether money power will make a comeback this time around considering how important it was in the last elections.

Surveyors are keeping a close eye on whether Tamil voters are buying into the narrative that the BJP developed as a Dravidian party substitute. One cannot ignore the fact that Annamalai and Rajkumar are members of the majority Goundar group in a state where caste dynamics are very important. With an aim to win over both groups, the party fielded Ramachandran from the Naidu community, despite the fact that top AIADMK officials in the area are Goundars.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has made three campaign stops in the Coimbatore area, would be embarrassed if Annamalai is unable to put up a respectable performance. It may also have an impact on the party’s blueprint for the assembly elections in 2026.