National Parties Play Crucial Role in Multi-Lingual Krishnagiri
The DMK alliance hopes to sail through due to the individual support for Ramachandran who won the constituency thrice.
Chennai:Krishnagiri, the district known for roses and mangoes, is different from the rest of the northern districts as national parties like the BJP, Congress and CPI play a decisive role in the electoral outcome.
The AIADMK is hopeful of bagging Veppanahalli and Hosur due to support for the BJP. Four other seats - Krishnagiri, Uthangarai, Bargur and Thalli - are witnessing a close contest in a district where Telugu- and Kannada-speaking population is very high.
The Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) and Naam Tamilar Katchi have fielded candidates in all the six constituencies and the TVK’s impact will be a major factor in the outcome of the election.
The Congress has fielded A. Chellakumar in Krishnagiri against sitting MLA K. Ashok Kumar in a tight contest. Former AIADMK minister and party’s deputy general secretary K.P. Munusamy is fighting against DMK’s P.S. Srinivasan in Veppanahalli. He is expected to retain the seat due to an organised and vigorous campaign and the support of the BJP which bagged 13.31 per cent votes in the Assembly segment in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Both the AIADMK and BJP have strong support in Hosur where the AIADMK has fielded former minister Balakrishna Reddy against DMK’s S.A. Sathya. The BJP polled 25.75 per cent votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the Hosur Assembly segment, bordering Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, while the AIADMK received 23.12 and the DMK alliance got 39.29 per cent votes.
The election battle is very close in Krishnagiri, Uthangarai, Bargur and Thalli where the AIADMK and BJP are as powerful as the DMK and Congress. In Thalli, the BJP polled 28.57 per cent votes in the Lok Sabha elections and the AIADMK received 20.37 per cent votes. Though the AIADMK alliance is very strong, CPI candidate T. Ramachandran is a local strongman who won the seat as an Independent in 2006 when the CPI refused him the ticket. The DMK alliance hopes to sail through due to the individual support for Ramachandran who won the constituency thrice.
Hosur town witnesses traffic congestion and the district headquarters Krishnagiri is not connected through rail. Several protests have been held in Hosur, alleging that local youth are not provided employment in the factories. The district is known as the mango capital of the country due to the large number of mangoes produced and it leads in fruit, vegetable and flower cultivation in Tamil Nadu. Hosur is an industrial centre in the district which has dense forests in the hills.
The district exports about one lakh tonnes of mango pulp. The farmers also cultivate cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, beans and oilseeds besides paddy and ragi. The district grows roses and other flowers in large numbers.
Though a large number of fruits, vegetables and flowers are grown, the district lacks sufficient cold storage facilities, resulting in the fluctuation of prices of agricultural products. The farmers suffer huge losses when tomato and mango prices go down and the mangoes are procured at a low price by the pulp factories.
The cultivation of mangoes and roses are affected when the monsoon fails and the groundwater table is rapidly going down in several parts of the district, including in Hosur. The Thenpennai river, which flows through the district, is polluted due to untreated effluents of factories and sewage. Man-animal conflict is widespread and people frequently lose their lives due to elephants.
