Focus shifts to byelection

The fight is most likely to be between three major parties

November 01, 2018 01:17 am | Updated 01:17 am IST - CHENNAI

With Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) founder T.T.V. Dhinakaran reiterating his position that his group won’t move the Supreme Court with an appeal against the Madras High Court’s judgment on the disqualification of 18 MLAs, byelections to the 18 constituencies, along with two others in the near future, seem a likely possibility.

While the ruling AIADMK has announced the formation of election committees for the constituencies, the DMK and the AMMK have said their election panels for Lok Sabha constituencies, which are due for general elections in April-May next year, would take care of the 20 Assembly segments coming under the respective parliamentary seats.

However, to a query, Satyabrata Sahoo, Chief Electoral Officer, told The Hindu that the Election Commission had not yet sought inputs from him on the issue of holding the by-polls in the 20 constituencies.

A look at the track record of the two principal parties — AIADMK and the DMK in the 20 seats reveals that in respect of 11 constituencies, the former won five times or more since the 1977 Assembly elections, after which the political space came to be dominated by the two Dravidian parties. The DMK had accomplished a similar feat in respect of three constituencies — Perambur, Thiruvarur and Thanjavur.

It is perhaps because of this factor that both the DMK and the AIADMK regard each other as their primary rival.

However, R.S. Bharathi, organising secretary of the DMK and R. Vaithilingam, deputy coordinator of the AIADMK, allude to the possibility of some other party finishing runner-up in a handful of places. P. Palaniappan, organising secretary of the AMMK, says that his organisation considers the DMK its main rival. The three major players — AIADMK, DMK and the AMMK — are confident of winning in all the 20 constituencies, in the event of by-elections.

Past performance

Even though the contest may essentially be among the three parties, others do enjoy considerable space in some of the constituencies, if one were to go by the performance in the 2016 Assembly polls. For example, the presence of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Sattur; the Viduthalai Chriuthaigal Katchi (VCK) in Harur and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) in Pappireddipatti made an enormous difference.

In fact, the PMK pushed the DMK to the third slot in Pappireddipatti, where former Minister P. Palaniappan won by a margin of about 12,700 votes. Acknowledging the role of such parties in such constituencies, J.C.D, Prabhakar of the AIADMK says the outcome may even be determined by the way these parties conduct themselves at the time of polls.

Even though many political leaders cutting across parties feel that the byelection may be clubbed along with the Lok Sabha polls, they all agree that as and when the byelection is held, it is going to be very intense.

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