CHENNAI: Long before D Jayakumar’s arrival, the campaign reached fever pitch in the streets of Royapuram. Outside an Amma Unavagam near Stanley Government Hospital, cadres and supporters gathered, turning the modest space into a makeshift stage with film songs filling the summer air.
A lookalike of MG Ramachandran kept the mood alive with familiar gestures and dialogues. The nostalgia soon gave way to newer campaign tracks and dance performances — a shift from past to the present — as the veteran AIADMK leader entered the scene.
The former minister slipped seamlessly into the crowd, greeting many by their names. Royapuram is his home turf, where he has lost only twice (1996 and 2021) in the seven elections he contested since 1991 — building a rare hold for over three decades in a Chennai constituency. His campaign leans heavily on continuity and personal connections forged over the years. In Aaduthotti, a dense cluster of narrow lanes and tightly packed homes, that connection is most visible.
At its entrance, he openly acknowledges that the locality, which has a sizeable minority population, gave him fewer votes in 2021, when he lost by a margin of nearly 28,000 votes to DMK’s ‘Idream’ R Murthy. Jayakumar had blamed the BJP for his loss after 25 years. “I was the uncrowned king of Royapuram. I lost because of the BJP alliance,” he had famously said.
Though his party is back in alliance with the national party, Jayakumar is determined to try everything he can to get support from the minorities. “After that, I made it a point to keep coming back. I have visited over 300 times in the last five years. How many times did the current MLA come?” he asks.
Sensing Murthy was not that popular, DMK has fielded a new face — Subair Khan, son of former DMK minister A Rahman Khan.
R Marthamma (74) lights up as Jayakumar walks through the area, greeting residents one by one. A lifelong Congress supporter, she says she has decided to vote for him this time. Her reason is simple: months before the election, he had sat beside her at a local church and spoken with warmth.
When she reminds him of it, he recalls the interaction instantly. Moments later, the former boxer playfully spars with her 14-year-old grandson, an amateur boxer. For Marthamma, the choice is clear — her household’s votes are his. Such personal stories are not uncommon here. Many residents recall at least one interaction that has stayed with them.
N Paulraj (54), who lives in a cramped lane behind a cemetery inaccessible even to autorickshaws, recalls how Jayakumar, during his second term as an MLA, facilitated a government order to lay a road there. “He is a good man,” Paulraj says. A staunch DMK supporter, he says his vote will remain with his party, but adds that he never misses watching Jayakumar campaign. He also remembers another gesture: a `4,000 coupon Jayakumar once gave his son after a sports achievement to buy clothes at a neighbourhood shop. “Since then, my son has voted for him,” he says.
Jayakumar spends nearly five hours going door-to-door in Aaduthotti.
At one stop, G Mahendran hands him a wedding invitation for April 20, just days before polling. “He rarely misses functions here,” he says. The campaign stretches into the next day, with Jayakumar returning to cover streets he could not reach.
The veteran leader’s outreach is marked by lively gestures, breaking into playful boxing bouts with youngsters, joining children for a quick game of cricket and stopping for unhurried conversations with residents, alongside his pitch to restore basic amenities in the locality. He even recites dialogues of his idol and party founder MG Ramachandran, like Madham konda yanai sinam konda singathidam thotru pogum (even a musth elephant will lose to a lion filled with rage), drawing applause from the crowd at just the right moments.
Beneath the connection he has built over the years, however, lies the political arithmetic that shapes every election, one that may not entirely be in his favour. Asked what makes this time different, Jayakumar says people have missed him as an MLA.
“There are six corporation divisions here, and I can sense they want change,” he says. Despite acknowledging the constituency’s significant minority population, around 40,000 of the 1.46 lakh voters, he says he never considered shifting elsewhere. “Humanity transcends religion. People will choose who stands by them in times of need,” Jayakumar sings off.