Cup of woes is full for voters in Pudukottai district

The voters of Pudukottai district have been sulking for the last few years not only over the abolition of the Pudukottai Lok Sabha constituency in delimitation process prior to 2009 elections, but also for the reason that the six Assembly segments situated in the district were attached to four Lok Sabha constituencies.

Now their cup of woes is full, with none of the major political parties nominating a leader hailing from the district as a candidate in any of the four Lok Sabha constituencies with the exception of the former Union Minister Su. Thirunavukkarasar, a native of Aranthangi, who has been fielded in the Ramanathapuram constituency as Congress candidate.

Following the abolition of the Pudukottai Lok Sabha constituency, which existed form the very first general elections, the six Assembly segments in the district have been attached to four Lok Sabha constituencies of Tiruchi (Pudukottai and Gandarvakottai Assembly seats), Sivaganga (Tirumayam and Alangudi), Ramanathapuram (Aranthangi), and Karur (Viralimalai segment).

The major candidates in the fray are: P. Kumar (AIADMK), Mu. Anbazhagam (DMK), Sarubala Tondaiman (Congress), AMG Vijayakumar (DMDK), and S. Sridhar of the CPI (M) in Tiruchi constituency; R.P. Senthilnathan (AIADMK), Suba Durairaj (DMK), Karti Chidambaram (Congress), H. Raja (BJP), S. Krishnan (CPI) in Sivaganga constituency; and M. Thambidurai (AIADMK), M. Chinnasamy (DMK), S. Jothimani (Congress), N.S. Krishnan (DMDK) in Karur constituency are from the neighbouring districts. All the candidates except Su. Thirunavukkarasar for the Ramanathapuram constituency hail from Ramanathapuram district.

Ms. Sarubala is the daughter-in-law of Pudukottai royal family, but she lives in Tiruchi city. Similarly, Mr. Kumar and Mr. Anbazhagan have their roots in Pudukottai district but live in Tiruchi city.

A cross section of the people of Pudukottai district are sore that the major parties have not considered the names of the local leaders living in the district selecting the nominees for the four Lok Sabha constituencies.

“Some of the local organisations raised this issue as soon as the election schedule was announced and pleaded with the parties to nominate leaders from the district. But the message was not so loud enough that it did not all fall in the ears of the party higher-ups,” says S. Rajkumar, a youth of Tirugokarnam.