CHENNAI: The high-pitched campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, which was the shortest in Tamil Nadu’s electoral history, came to an end at 6pm on Wednesday with the state set to vote in the first round of the multi-phase election on Friday.
The general election is also different from what the state has witnessed in the past, primarily because the ruling BJP, the incumbent at the centre, has mustered all its resources to challenge the two Dravidian majors, not just in this election but also with 2026 TN Assembly poll in mind.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders of the BJP, including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman and JP Nadda, frequented Tamil Nadu to woo the voters. But the primary target of the BJP’s national leadership was DMK, which was pilloried for corruption and dynastic politics. They largely spared the AIADMK, their alliance partner until last year, and even hailed its late leaders M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa.
The BJP state president K Annamalai, however, provoked the AIADMK in the last phase of the campaign by saying that the AIADMK led by EPS would disappear after the election. This triggered a trenchant attack from the Dravidian party’s general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, who had until then shown restraint in his criticism of the BJP.
The state is technically witnessing a four-cornered contest among the alliances led by the DMK, the AIADMK and the BJP, and the lone NTK, which has been flaunting its solitary stance as a major political plank.
AIADMK, DMK spar over political ties with saffron party
The two Dravidian majors, however, continued to reiterate that it is only a bipolar contest between them. Though the election is for the Lok Sabha, the DMK is in a way seeking a vote for its government’s performance in the last three years. Chief Minister MK Stalin framed it as one being fought for the retrieval of democracy. While Stalin was unsparing in his criticism of the BJP, he also accused AIADMK of being in a clandestine relationship with the saffron party. The CM also fashioned the contest as being one-sided in DMK’s favour with the slogan “all 40 (constituencies) is ours”.
For the principal opposition, AIADMK, it was a one-man show by its general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami. His campaign picked up momentum towards the end, leading to some poll pundits predicting that the opposition party may spoil DMK’s ambition of a clean sweep.
The AIADMK leader took on Prime Minister Modi and BJP leaders without taking their names by stating that “road shows won’t work in Tamil Nadu.” In an interview with TNIE, he categorically said that neither the NDA nor INDIA Alliance would get the victory they are hoping for. Based on an RTI reply accessed by Annamalai, the BJP raked up the Katchatheevu issue in a big way to attack the DMK and Congress. But after much hubbub, the BJP’s 2024 poll manifesto did not have even one word on the retrieval of the islet from Sri Lanka.
When Stalin mentioned about clandestine relationship, Palaniswami said the description did not befit the stature of CM. He complained that Stalin had been using undignified language. However, EPS quite often called Stalin a ‘bommai mudhalamaichar’ (toy CM) who is being ‘managed’ by others. Stalin, on the other hand, described Palaniswami as ‘paadham thaangi Palaniswami’ (one who acts as a footrest for others).
Some political parties, especially those not in the NDA, found it difficult to get their desired symbols. The NTK was forced to popularise its new symbol, mike, in just days. This election was also marked by high-pitch online campaigns and witnessed many key candidates releasing separate election manifestos for their constituencies.
Another interesting aspect of the election was the explosion of poll surveys from all directions --- apart from TV channels and newspapers.