CHENNAI: After about a quarter century, Nagercoil constituency will be returning a Hindu candidate to the Assembly as all the three key contestants for the April 13 elections are Hindu Nadars DMK's R Mahesh, AIADMK's A Nanjil Murugesan and BJP's Pon Radhakrishnan.
The last time Nagercoil constitueny voted a Hindu candidate was in 1984 when DMK's S Retinaraj won the election.
Since then all MLAs representing the constituency have been Christians. But with the demography of the constituency, which was once considered a Christian heartland, undergoing a change after delimitation, both the major alliances vying for power in the state woke up to the reality and fielded Hindus, lest they concede the seat to the BJP.
For the in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the first election held after delimitation, in the Nagercoil segment, BJP state president, Pon Radhakrishnan, secured 48,965 votes as against the winning candidate, J Helen Davidson's 41,476 votes.
That result had in fact made the BJP upbeat about bagging the Nagercoil constituency and also the neighbouring Kanyakumari, where too the BJP polled 52,192 votes against DMK's 49,449.
But after the major alliances chose Hindu candidates, it remains to be seen if the BJP will win the seat.
For, the local campaigners of the two alliances claim that in the Lok Sabha elections, the AIADMK sympathisers voted for the BJP as they were not keen on backing their alliance candidate, A V Bellarmin of the CPM, who finished a poor third polling just 85,583 votes in the entire constituency as against DMK's grand total of 3,20,161 votes and BJP's 2,54,474 votes.
Now that an AIADMK candidate is contesting, there is no scope for the BJP harness that vote bank, the local politicians feel.
More over, in the Lok Sabha election, Radhakrishnan was the lone Hindu in the fray, which led to most of the Hindus, who form 62 per cent of the electorate, preferring him.
Now it will be a Hindu MLA for the consituency, which has been sending Christians since 1971 with the exemption of Retnaraj.
However, the Christian candidates had been from different parties. M Vincent, who won in 1977 and 1980 was from AIADMK, M Moses (1989, 1991 and 1996) was from Congress, Austin (2001) belonged to the now defunt MGRADMK and sitting MLA A Rajan belongs to DMK.