A multi-cornered contest in the Vanniyar heartland

Having joined the AIADMK-BJP alliance, sitting MP Anbumani Ramadoss faces anti-incumbency on two fronts

Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami campaigning for PMK candidate Anbumani Ramadoss in Dharmapuri.

The Vanniyar-dominated Dharmapuri parliamentary constituency is witnessing a three-cornered battle among sitting PMK MP Anbumani Ramadoss, the DMK’s Senthil Kumar and the AMMK’s P. Palaniappan, a former Minister and disqualified Pappireddypatti MLA.

While Dr. Anbumani managed to win from the constituency as part of the third front in 2014, trouncing the candidates of the AIADMK and the DMK, this time around, he has to overcome the challenges posed by factors such as anti-incumbency, cadre disenchantment and a strong opponent in Dr. Senthil Kumar.

DMK nominee for Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency S.Senthil Kumar filing his papers to Returning Officer and Collector S.Malarvizhi in Dharmapuri.

 

The anti-incumbency factor is two-fold, considering that the PMK is part of an alliance that comprises the AIADMK – which is into its second term – and the BJP. Besides, a section of voters feels that he has done little for the rural constituency, dotted with drought-hit marginal landholdings and facing steep drinking water scarcity, unemployment, migration, absence of industries and a lack of water harvesting schemes to support agriculture.

Stalled projects

The multi-billion-dollar, Japan-funded Hogenakkal drinking water project, implemented in 2011, is dogged by erratic water distribution due to lack of dedicated maintenance and response to grievances. Industrial estates under SIPCOT and SIDCO, announced under Rule 110 by the AIADMK government during its previous term, are yet to take off. Irrigation projects to harvest water from Thenpennai river from Enekol, Aliyalam and Pulikarai to tackle drought, announced by this government, is also yet to be implemented. The eight-lane Salem-Chennai expressway project, which will affect farmers from all communities, especially the Kongu Vellalars, the Vanniyars and the SCs in Harur and Pappireddipatti constituencies, have led to anti-incumbency.

However, former PMK MP Senthil said, “No other MP in the history of Dharmapuri has done what Dr. Anbumani has.” The Dharmapuri-Morappur railway line, an electoral promise, was sanctioned (this February), and the works were flagged off (shortly before elections were declared). “This was the only project announced for the State in five years. Dr. Anbumani identified 10 projects for ground water augmentation which will make Dharmapuri drought-free. The district was peaceful for five years and we maintained friendly relations will all communities,” he argued.

The DMK’s Dr. Senthil Kumar is a radiologist from a locally renowned family. The grandson of D.N. Vadivel Gounder, the local patriarch who won a byelection from Dharmapuri for Chief Minister Kamaraj in 1965, he stands to benefit from his family’s goodwill across caste/party lines. “Salem was bifurcated and Dharmapuri was made headquarters as a promise to the voters then (in the 1960s),” he said.

Legacy aside, the younger generation is seen as ‘unsullied’. A. Vanniyar, a DMK member for five years, like Dr. Anbumani, refuses to invoke his caste, and says he wants to talk “inclusive growth”.

The AIADMK-PMK alliance is hoping to replicate the 2014 arithmetic. However, back then, the PMK had rallied together the OBCs against the backdrop of the 2012 riots in Dalit hamlets of Naickenkottai following an inter-caste marriage. There is a shift from such polarisation. In fact, though Vanniyars are dominant in four of the six Assembly segments, in 2016, Dr. Anbumani faced defeat in Pennagaram.

At the grassroots, the AIADMK cadre’s distrust of the PMK has not disappeared, and the entry of former Minister P. Palaniappan, a Kongu Vellalar, as an AMMK candidate has skewed the pitch. “Any vote for the AMMK is an AIADMK vote,” said a former PMK cadre, now with the AMMK.