Pennagaram constituency hosts some of the most backward parts of Dharmapuri district dogged by poor health and gender indicators. Eriyur, Pennagaram and Paaparapatty are areas in that order of backwardness crying for attention on basic governance-enabled amenities such as drinking water, primary health care, education and employment avenues.
Child and early marriages, multiple pregnancies, preferences for male child, distress migration for seasonable employment are among the many issues that demand systemic intervention.
Vanniyars constitute 66.8 % of the constituency followed by 8.3% of Adi Dravidars. However, the Vanniyar population is split between the major parties.
The PMK has always viewed Pennagaram as its citadel for its predominantly Vanniyar population. Its candidate G.K. Mani, one of the State leaders of the party had won from this constituency in 1996 and 2001.
DMK has fielded its sitting MLA P.N.P. Inbasekaran, a two term-MLA, whose foray into electoral politics began with the death of his father and the then sitting DMK MLA P.N. Periyannan, necessitating a hotly contested by-election in 2010. Mr. Inbasekaran won the seat against the PMK candidate in 2010.
In 2016, Mr. Inbasekaran beat the high-profile PMK candidate Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, who fought the election as the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate. CPI has a reckonable presence in the constituency, winning a seat in 2011. The alliance between the DMK and the CPI is expected to benefit Mr. Inbasekaran here.
Backed by the legacy of his father Periyannan, who was an erstwhile PMK man before he moved to the DMK carrying along a loyal following, Mr. Inbasekaran is a contender to reckon with. Besides, he is playing the ‘insider’ card, wooing the voters that as a resident he would stay in the constituency unlike the PMK’s Mr. Mani.
Mr. Mani’s contest is fraught with the outsider label on the one hand, which is being played up as Vanniyar subcaste power struggles in a Vanniyar majority constituency, and on the other by the resentment with the AIADMK over non-allocation of seat.
There is visible disengagement of the AIADMK cadre from the campaign over the allocation of the seat to the PMK. The seat was vied by the AIADMK’s T.R. Anbalagan, chairman, Aavin, Krishnagiri but was ceded to the PMK. What followed was a string of protests by the AIADMK.
As if to countenance the PMK’s positioning itself as a vanguard of the community, the DMK has roped in the late Vanniyar Sangam leader Kaaduvetti Guru’s family members for campaign in each of the PMK contested constituencies here.
Kaaduvetti Guru’s family’s estrangement with the PMK’s founders came to fore in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. This time, the DMK roped in the daughter, and sister of late Guru to undercut the PMK campaign in the party’s panchayats. Late Guru is a revered name in the villages here and the involvement of the family members in an anti-PMK campaign is also likely to dent the PMK’s campaign.
