With just two days left for electioneering, candidates of major political parties in Tamil Nadu have resorted to intense campaigning in their constituencies.
Equally busy are the candidates of some parties which have strong roots in North India and do not have a significant presence in the State. Neither absence of any strong support-base nor paucity of funds has curbed their enthusiasm. Many of them do not have star campaigners canvassing for them.
A number of candidates belonging to these parties claim that they have a mission to achieve: spreading the aims, objects, and ideologies of their respective parties, without bothering about the poll outcome.
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For them, election is a golden opportunity to expose the commissions and omissions of the ruling parties at the national and regional levels. They appear to bank on “negative votes”. Public anger on the major parties and failure on the part of the ruling parties would enable them to win the voters’ support in their favour, they claim.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party, the Lok Satta, and the Samata Party are some of the parties which have strong base in North India and are in fray in Tamil Nadu.
The BSP has fielded its candidates in all the six constituencies in the central region and the Samajwadi Party nominees are in the fray in three constituencies — Tiruchi, Karur, and Mayiladuthurai. Samata Party and Lok Satta party candidates are in Tiruchi constituency.
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“The BSP has chosen persons from the weaker sections as candidates as it was interested in setting a new trend in the polling arena,” S. Natarajan, the party candidate for Tiruchi constituency, says.
He has accorded priority for establishing personal contacts with the voters and has successfully covered all the six Assembly segments which come under the constituency in the last one month. “We propagate the policies of late Ambedkar and the message has reached the people,” Mr. Natarajan, a retired Central Government employee and former Tiruchi district president of the party, says.
M. Karunakaran, member of the national council of the Lok Satta Party, is its candidate for Tiruchi constituency. Like the candidates of the leading parties he too campaigns vigorously to woo the voters.
“I am on my second round of the constituency and confident of bringing out impressive performance”, Mr. Karunakaran told The Hindu in the midst of hectic campaign schedule.
P. Jothi, Samajwadi Party candidate for Tiruchi constituency, has been campaigning in the length and breadth of the Pudukottai and Gandarvakottai Assembly segments for the past many days.
Seventy one independents in the fray in the six Lok Sabha constituencies, and some of them too are involved in campaigning.