KARUR: In 2019, S Jothimani (48) was elected from the Karur constituency with a whopping margin of 4.2 lakh votes over AIADMK veteran M Thambidurai. The architect of her stupendous victory in a seat she’d lost in the past was V Senthil Balaji, DMK’s local strongman. Five years later, Balaji is behind bars in a money-laundering case while the Congress spokesperson is battling strong anti-incumbency – local cadres of her own party resisted her candidature from the seat.
In Balaji’s absence, his foes – AIADMK’s MR Vijayabaskar, a heavyweight in his own right, and BJP’s state chief K Annamalai who hails from here – are hoping to breach the Karur fortress. However, Balaji’s aides and associates are going all out to ensure Jothimani’s victory, by following the jailed MLA’s playback from 2019 and targeting rural and minorities and convincing them to vote for the DMK alliance.
The Karur parliamentary constituency is unique in that it comprises assembly segments from four different districts: Aravakurichi, Karur and Krishnarayapuram (SC) in Karur, Vedasandur in Dindigul, Manapparai in Tiruchy and Viralimalai in Pudukkottai districts.
Since he joined the DMK, Balaji has made the parliamentary constituency a stronghold of the party by securing victory in five of the six assembly segments here in 2021. Jothimani’s own victory was also built on previous success of the Congress here – of the 16 Lok Sabha elections, Congress has won in Karur seven times, AIADMK six times while DMK, TMC and Swatantra Party have won once each.
Jothimani’s selection was controversial with a section of Congress leaders batting for Bank Subramaniyam, who lost the Karur assembly seat to Vijayabhaskar in 2016 by just 441 votes. Further, her performance as an MP has been viewed as merely average, with voters on the campaign trail asking why she is visiting only now after years.
Still, she may be better known, as the AIADMK has fielded its Karur district MGR council secretary L Thangavel (66) for whom this will be the first election. While this will be the third election for BJP Karur district president VV Senthilnathan (42) who is contesting here, it will be his first attempt in a parliamentary constituency and as a BJP candidate; he contested in Aravakurichi on AIADMK tickets in 2011 and 2019 but lost.
Also in Jothimani’s favour is the anti-incumbency against the BJP-led union government in Delhi and the sizeable number of minority voters in Karur, Krishnarayapuram and Aravakuruchi segments, especially in Pallapatti taluk which has voted with the DMK for years.
However, Vijayabaskar has been going all out to steal a victory for the AIADMK in Balaji’s own backyard. Leading the campaign from the front, he’s been highlighting the unfulfilled promises of the DMK state government. For its part, the BJP is trying to lure women voters by taking up the issue of prohibition. Interestingly, although Karur is Annamalai’s hometown, he has not been campaigning here much.
Karur’s voters, however, have more to consider than just political affiliations when casting their ballot. The Karur region is known for banana, drumstick and betel leaf cultivation with Aravakurichi alone producing over 40% of drumsticks sold in Tamil Nadu. Yet, the decade-long demand for a drumstick processing factory to make value-added products remains unfulfilled. The factory, according to farmers, would secure them against price crashes by allowing them to extract oil and make moringa powder out of drumsticks and export these products to foreign markets.
Similarly, banana farmers want a storage facility for their produce and a processing factory to produce banana jam and other value-added products. They have also been demanding that bananas be added to the noon-meal scheme. Betel-leaf farmers are demanding a research centre to explore the medicinal value of the crop which could then be sold to pharma companies.
Karur is also a significant textile belt; Karur district alone exports over Rs 1,000 crore of household textiles such as curtains, bedspreads, blankets, pillow covers, cushions, cushion covers. Industrialists said it would benefit from an integrated textile park with a common effluents treatment park), dyeing units, testing labs, a multipurpose conventional hall to hold international trade fair expos.
Another significant demand is for a morning train service from Karur to Chennai. For over a quarter of a century, residents have wanted the union government to build a six or eight-lane highway from Coimbatore to Tiruchy via Karur for better connectivity but in vain.
Karur district is also known for its bus body-building factories which have been facing the heat in recent times due to the fluctuations in the prices of raw materials, lack of skilled manpower and subsidies.
With all eyes on the Karur constituency, the electorate hopes that the victor of the election will rise up to meet their expectations.