Come elections, the infamous “Tirumangalam formula” of winning votes becomes a hot topic again in Tamil Nadu. As the name suggests, the successful formula was developed for the by-election to the Tirumangalam Assembly seat in Madurai district in 2009.
The then ruling party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, played several known tricks and introduced newer ones to win over voters with cash and kind, so much so that the Election Commission reportedly felt embarrassed by its failure to check money and muscle power.
The Tirumangalam formula became so notorious that it found a mention in Wikileaks.
“People think that only money bought votes. But it was much more than that,” a former Corporation councillor of the DMK, who was in the campaign team, said.
Not only district secretaries of the DMK but also a good number of State and Union Ministers camped in the constituency, taking care of designated areas.
The DMK revived the concept of Thinnai Pracharam of an older era in Tirumangalam wherein party leaders struck a rapport with the local voters with continuous interaction over days.
“In one month of stay there, we became members of their families,” a DMK man said.
Besides attending to common problems such as repairing drinking water pipelines, the cadres found new ways to touch the heart of voters. They took care of personal requirements by providing sewing machines for the needy, cots for aged persons, tricycles for disabled youth or grocery for a month for a poor family. “In many places, we handed over grocery and meat or fish and asked the family members to cook for us and we shared the feast with them during our stay,” he said.
However, the former Deputy Mayor Misa Pandian said that only a micro-level approach had helped the DMK get more votes. “Maybe, the functionaries in charge of each area could have done something to lure voters to sustain their party post or ministerial berth,” he said.
Besides distributing dhotis, saris and utensils, party men even distributed cricket kits to woo the local youth. A tender coconut seller said that everyone was handing over Rs. 500 notes to buy tender coconuts. Small vendors ran short of currency notes of minor denominations, it was rumoured.
“Since the freebies were handed over only to the actual voters and not to others, our neighbour felt bad. He brought back his daughter-in-law from her home to remain vigilant and collect the freebies as he, his wife and son were away at work during daytime,” a woman from Gopalapuram said.
Voters employed outside the constituency were given two-way reserved tickets on omnibuses to encourage them to participate in the democratic process.
‘Best practices’The Tirumangalam formula was not a standalone experiment, but an improvised combination of the “best practices” adopted in two previous by-elections held in the Madurai Central (2006) and the Madurai West (2007) Assembly constituencies.
In 2007, the ruling party alliance was emboldened to distribute envelopes with cash in District Revenue Officers’ Colony, where government officers and employees live. “The cadres had the guts to enter the police quarters in the city and leave the envelopes for those whose names were on the voter list,” a police officer said.
Unleashing violence on leaders of Opposition parties was another part of the formula, sitting MLA M. Muthuramalingam (who had contested that by-poll) complained.
“It all started in the Madurai West by-election when former Minister E. Madhusoothanan was attacked and paraded half-naked on the road. In the other by-election, party functionary M.S. Pandian suffered a fracture on his leg in a brutal attack,” Mr. Muthuramalingam said.
The law-and-order situation worsened so much so that the Election Commission threatened to countermand the by-poll.
