SALEM: Despite a new crop of aspirants, the Salem Lok Sabha constituency, a prestigious seat in the western belt and known as 'steel town' of the South, is in for an absorbing tussle for the April 18 parliamentary elections.
In a four-cornered contest in which traditional rivals, DMK and AIADMK are the key players, more so on the Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami's home turf, it is yet the fledgling Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) led by dissident leader TTV Dhinakaran which is giving the Dravidian majors sleepless nights.
While K.R.S.Saravanan of the AIADMK is pitted against S.R. Parthiban of the DMK, the AMMK has fielded a former two-time AIADMK MLA, S K Selvam, and the Makkal Needhi Maiyam (MNM) led by actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan has fielded Prabhu Manikandan, a management graduate. The Salem Lok Sabha, comprising the Assembly segments of Salem South, Salem West, Salem North, Omalur, Veerapandi and Edappadi, has a total electorate of 15,92,487, with men voters marginally more than women voters in this constituency.
In the 2014 LS polls, AIADMK won the Salem seat and this time being a "prestigious contest" due to Chief Minister's native of Edappadi being at the heart of it, the ruling party is going all out to grab this constituency for a second time, notwithstanding Salem being a traditional Congress seat.
However, political observers say that the AIADMK's candidate, K R S Saravanan, apart from a being a buddy of Mr. Palaniswami, the former has very little to show individually. In fact, in the 2016 Assembly polls, Saravanan lost the Salem north seat to the DMK. Nonetheless, poll work is in full swing in his camp given his proximity to the Chief Minister, sources say, adding, he is a resourceful candidate.
The DMK at the other end of the pole, has fielded a relative political outsider, in S R Parthiban, a former DMDK MLA who won from Mettur Assembly constituency in the 2011 elections and later defected to the DMK. A reasonably familiar face in Salem and with goodwill among the electorate in Mettur, which is not quite part of the constituency, Parthiban's electioneering received a big boost since DMK president M K Stalin campaigned here. For a parliamentary seat, Parthiban may not be a typical DMK 'big gun', in a district once ruled by the 'Lion of Salem', late Veerapandi S Arumugam, but he is a tough challenger to the ruling AIADMK.
Nonetheless, it is AMMK's S.K. Selvam, twice former MLA from Veerapandi, who is seen as the 'dark horse' here, for he is widely known and is expected to poll a considerable number of votes as an ex-AIADMK man popular with the electorate. Though all these three candidates are from the OBC Vanniyar community, the dominant caste group here, the chemistry between AIADMK's allies, PMK and DMDK, is still in the making. This could turn Salem into a DMK versus AMMK battle, even as Kamal Haasan's party nominee is a political greenhorn.
