DMK to Have a Walkover in Erode East

Chennai: The by-election to the Erode East Assembly constituency on February 5 is likely to see the DMK having a walkover as all the major political rivals have announced a boycott of the elections to express their protest over the DMK’s anticipated malpractices with only the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) of Seeman expected to remain in the fray.

Since the NTK has not won a single election – none of its candidates have even recovered their deposits in a noteworthy manner - since it started contesting polls on its own without going in for any alliance in 2016, it is no match to the established DMK in power.

However, it is rumoured that the major opposition parties like the AIADMK, BJP and DMDK could prop up the NTK indirectly because the parties have not stated that their cadre would also be keeping off the polls.

When asked about it, BJP State president K Annamalai said that their members would perform their democratic duty, meaning that they would cast their vote. But to whom he did not elaborate. Even the AIADMK had not yet come with any such indication of supporting the NTK.

However, it is widely believed that the parties that are not part of the DMK-led coalition in the State might gang up to defeat the DMK candidate V C Chandrakumar, who was earlier with the DMDK, perhaps with the Tamilga Vetri Kazhagam of actor Vijay alone not joining the gang.

The BJP that was keen on fielding its own candidate in 2023 when the earlier by-election was held in the constituency with a view to face the Congress candidate, E V K S Elangovan, who ultimately won, too, backed out of the present by-election because its ally, the TMC had evinced interest in fielding a candidate.

Finally, taking into account the pros and cons of the by-election, the NDA decided to keep off. Similarly the AIADMK, which was part of the NDA during the previous by-election in the constituency but fought valiantly against the Congress candidate in 2023, has lost interest in contesting once more.

Since the Congress was also finding it difficult to zero in on a candidate with winning prospects, it let the seat go to the alliance leader DMK, for which winning the election is important for its image saving exercise ahead of the general election in 2026.

If the NTK is going to be the only main contestant for the DMK, it also has to be watched as to how much support Seeman will have in the constituency that is part of Erode district that is the birth place of Periyar E V Ramasamy, who has become the latest target of attack for Seeman.

How much the people, who have overwhelmingly voted in favour Periyar’s two descendants - Elangovan is the grandnephew of Periyar and Thirumagan Evera is the great grandnephew – in the previous two hustings in the constituency, take Seeman’s denigration of Periyar is something to be watched.