CHENNAI: Just two months to go for the Assembly election, the ruling DMK has drawn up a list of prospective candidates and launched constituency-level surveys to assess their winning prospects across the state.
According to sources that are part of the survey, the exercise is aimed at identifying the strongest contender in each constituency by evaluating factors such as local acceptability, organisational strength, past electoral performance and prevailing political mood.
“We call the voters at constituency level. First, we ask them which party they would vote for, and then we list out the prospective candidates we have with us and ask them, to whom would they vote for on behalf of the DMK. The response will be compiled and submitted to the party leadership,” the source at the DMK’s political strategy team told TNIE.
Say for instance, in Coimbatore’s Thondamuthur constituency, the survey team had listed out DMK’s north district secretary Ravi, Coimbatore municipal corporation’s 72nd ward councillor Karthik Selvaraj and two others as prospective candidates and asked the respondents to choose one among them.
The respondent’s caste and class details are also being collected. The surveys are being conducted at the ground level, involving feedback from party functionaries, booth-level workers and select opinion-makers in the constituency, apart from the general public.
However, according to another source, part of the DMK’s political consultancy firm, the exercise is not limited to shortlisting candidates alone. “The party is also using the survey findings to gauge its overall winning prospects in individual constituencies, before it officially begins the seat-sharing and constituency-sharing negotiations with its allies,” the source said.
For instance, Thondamuthur constituency had long been given to the alliance partners of DMK. After 2001, it was only in 2021, DMK fielded its own candidate in the constituency.
A senior DMK leader said the data generated from the surveys would help the DMK leadership take a realistic view of constituencies where the party is well-placed to contest on its own and those where accommodating allies could improve the alliance’s overall strike rate.
“The idea is to go into alliance talks with a clear understanding of ground realities, rather than relying only on past results or perceptions,” a senior DMK functionary said, adding that the leadership wants to avoid last-minute course corrections.
The DMK is expected to announce its committee to begin formal seat and constituency sharing talks with its allies in the coming week, as the survey reports are almost ready to be tabled before the party leadership.