This election will see a few warhorses across the political spectrum fighting it out to taste victory one more time. Of the lot, DMK chief M. Karunanidhi is the most experienced and has been fighting elections since 1957, when he won from Kulithalai in the composite Tiruchi district.
Mr. Karunanidhi, who did not contest the 1984 election, has the distinction of maintaining a clean slate by winning all the 12 elections he has fought so far, and it has been an arduous journey since the Kulithalai victory.
That victory — the DMK’s sole beacon of hope as it lost the other 16 Assembly seats in the district — has remained a special one for the DMK leader, and he has never missed a chance to thank the people of Tiruchi for providing him with the springboard that propelled him to the heady heights of the political stratosphere.
It also aided the party’s efforts to build its base in the district, and all the hard work bore fruit five years later when the DMK improved upon its performance and won nine seats in the district. While the DMK has veterans such as K. Anbazhagan, ‘Arcot’ N. Veerasamy, S. Madhavan, L. Ganesan, K. Vezhavendhan campaigning for the party — not all are contesting — the AIADMK has ‘Panruti’ S. Ramachandran. The veteran leader, who began his political career with the DMK and is the second most experienced candidate in the fray after Mr. Karunanidhi, has been contesting elections since 1967.
Eventful career
In a long and eventful career, he held a number of important portfolios — Transport, Local Administration, Electricity and Food — between 1971 and 1987 in the Karunanidhi and MGR Cabinets. In 1996, he floated his own outfit — the People’s Liberal Party — and contested the 2001 elections from Panruti under the party’s symbol.
However, Mr. Ramachandran suffered the first electoral defeat of his career and things were not any different five years later when tried to regain the seat, this time on the DMDK ticket. In 2011, he contested from Alandur and won, but resigned midway through his tenure.