“What has the DMK done for you in the last decade?” SR Vijayakumar demands of a shopkeeper in Kakkan Nagar, one of Central Chennai’s shadowy recesses of poverty.
A labyrinth of narrow roads and cramped living quarters near the Cooum in Aminjikarai, it sits just a kilometre from a busy shopping mall. The residents are daily-wage labourers, vegetable vendors and automobile mechanics. Forty-year-old Vasanthan runs a grocery store, and has yet to make up his mind whom to vote for. Vijayakumar, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam candidate, a 40-year-old lawyer, is targeting voters tucked away in the alleys. The idea is to draw them away from the DMK candidate Dayanidhi Maran who hopes to represent the constituency for a third consecutive term.
Nearly 13 lakh voters in Egmore, Villivakkam, Harbour, Chepauk-Triplicane, Thousand Lights and Anna Nagar will vote on April 24. Lack of proper living conditions, education, drinking water, and power cuts are the tools for contestants to take on each other in their campaigns.
The Assembly elections of 2011 and the poll promises are key electoral issues now. During the election, the AIADMK won four of the six assembly segments, the DMK won Chepauk, and Egmore went to Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam party. The J Jayalalithaa-led Government has endeared itself to voters through the Amma Canteens, the subsidised restaurants.
The small-bus service also has cheered voters as it complements the public transport system. But, there has been some flak for the free drinking water promise made ahead of the elections. For that, her reply at campaign speeches has been: “We have realised over 140 of the 177 developmental schemes spelt out before the elections. And, we still have two more years.”
For the AIADMK, a popular perception working in its favour is that it will hitch its wagon to the NDA if it comes to power at the Centre. G Shankar, who runs a shop in Chintadripet to re-bore worn out two-wheeler engines, is going to decidedly vote for the AIADMK. “I hear AIADMK will tie-up with BJP after the elections. So, why should I waste my vote?” All said, Vijaykumar is a new face against Maran, for whom the familiarity factor works.
People break into a smile at the sight of Maran waving from his Mahindra THAR 4X4. Holding on to a cushioned bar in his SUV, the two-time MP criticises Jayalalithaa’s populist schemes.
“The Government has collected ₹12,700 from each household through continual price hikes on Aavin milk. And now you know how you got your free mixers and grinders.”
J Constandine Raveendran of DMDK, a part of the BJP alliance, says there is resentment. CD Meiyappan of the Congress focuses on the Dravidian parties’ silence on post-poll alliances, and the welfare schemes of his party at the Centre.