VELLORE: The sitting MLA and former DMK minister Durai Murugan (77), has his task cut out as he prepares to battle for the semi-urban Katpadi constituency close to Vellore city.
Durai Murugan was elected from Katpadi for the first time in 1971 and since then he has contested nine times from the constituency.
From 1996, he has been elected four times consecutively and this will be his fifth consecutive win if he does indeed win again from this constituency.
The former minister who is close to the top brass has had his ups and downs also. He had lost to his own relative Kalaiselvi of AIADMK in 1991 from the same constituency and earlier in 1984 lost to AIADMK’s Raghupathi.
In between he contested from Ranipet constituency in 1977 and 1980 where he won with comfortable margin before getting back to Katpadi in 1996. Since then there has been no looking back for him from the seat which earned him a ministerial berth.
The Vanniyar strongman Durai Murugan is pitted against AIADMK’s SRK Appu, a young man in his 40s, representing the dominant Mudaliyar community.
They last time the two contested in the same constituency in 2011, Durai Murugan won by a slender margin of 2,000 plus votes. To complicate matters in this election, another former union minister N T Shanmugam of PMK also representing the same community has been fielded to split the Vanniyar votes in the constituency.
Katpadi is dominated by Vanniyars and Mudaliyars and the contest has always been between these two communities in the past elections. While the two candidates Durai Murugan and N T Shanmugam will be targeting the Vanniyar votes, Appu and TMC’s Sivanandam will be targeting the Mudaliyar votes to their advantage.
The de-limitation of creating a K V Kuppam in 2011 which took away a chunk of Vanniyar dominated villages from Katpadi limits could pose as a setback for both Durai Murugan and N T Shanmugam, the battle is going to be between the arch rivals DMK and AIADMK.
While a section of the voters in this constituency appreciated the work done by the sitting MLA, describing him as ‘an aggressive worker’ they were slightly disappointed that he was not accessible most of the time.
“We need someone who will stay here and listen to our problems. DMK should have fielded a different candidate this time,” they added. Some of the young DMK cadre also agreed with the locals as they felt that the party high command should have given opportunities to young aspirants this time for a change, deviating from the monopoly.
AIADMK camp is upbeat and working round the clock to overcome the shortcomings they had during the last election. The party has launched a door-to-door campaign to impress upon the voters the need for a ‘change’ and supporting ‘young candidate’.
In the absence of a strong wave of support or opposition to the MLA or his opponents, contenders have to move mountains to convince voters with poll promises.