Chennai: The Tiruchi Lok Sabha seat where Durai Vaiko son of veteran leader and founder of the MDMK, Vaiko, is contesting for the first time, has become a tough constituency for the INDIA bloc.
The seat was allocated to the MDMK after Vaiko put pressure on the DMK leadership led by TR Baalu, who was heading the seat sharing talks with alliance partners.
Replacing the veteran leader and providing the seat to MDMK has led to resentment brewing among the supporters of S Thirunavukkarasar who has a deep grass root connect with the local Congress party workers.
MK Subbarayan, a local Congress leader in Tiruchi told IANS, “Durai Vaiko is unacceptable in the constituency and he is an outsider. The seat was handed over to him on a platter and the Congress is having difficulty at the local level to accept his candidature. S Thirunavukkarasar has a deep connect in this constituency and there was no reason to remove him.”
The DMK was expecting Durai Vaiko to contest the elections on its ‘Rising Sun’ symbol; however Vaiko’s son was adamant that he would only contest on the ‘Matchbox’ symbol allocated to him by the Election Commission.
It may be recalled that in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, MDMK leader, late A Ganeshamurthy had contested and won from Erode Lok Sabha seat on the DMK’s symbol even though he was an MDMK candidate.
With Durai Vaiko flatly refusing to contest on the DMK’s symbol, the party’s local leadership is also not being very cooperative with the MDMK candidate.
I Kuppusamy, a local DMK leader told IANS, “The MDMK candidate can only win with the support of the DMK and he should have contested the polls on our symbol. There is anger among DMK workers against this and many of our workers are not eager to come out and work for Durai Vaiko.”
The suicide attempt and subsequent death of the sitting Erode MP and MDMK leader, A Ganeshamurthy, have also dealt a body blow to the MDMK candidate.
The family members of the deceased MP have levelled allegations that A Ganeshamurthy tried to commit suicide and subsequently died due to a heart attack after he was denied his seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Erode seat which he represented was exchanged by Vaiko with the DMK for allocating the Tiruchi seat to his son.
A Ganeshamurthy was a veteran three-term Lok Sabha MP and had deep grass root connections.
His death has led to resentment among MDMK cadres, supporters and sympathisers and this could also boomerang on Durai Vaiko.
The MDMK leader is pitted against, P Karuppiah of the AIADMK, P Senthilnathan of the AMMK and D Rajesh, a pro-Jallikattu activist and leader of the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK).
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, S Thirunavukkarasar of the Congress won the seat by a huge margin of 4,59,286 votes but things are not easy for Durai Vaiko in the constituency.
–IANS