NILGIRIS: It’s that time of the year when the weather here is balmy, drawing tourists in droves. However, the political temperature has soared in the old mountain ranges as it witnesses an ideological battle between the BJP’s L Murugan, a minister of state in Modi’s ministry, and the DMK’s A Raja, former telecom minister in the UPA-2 ministry, in this reserved constituency.
Raja and Murugan are locked in a fierce three-cornered battle with Lokesh Tamilselvan of the AIADMK, son of P Dhanapal who was speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly for nearly 10 years up to May 2021.
A native of Namakkal, Murugan was actively involved in the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) in his college days and later joined the RSS. Between 2017 and 2020, he served as Vice Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC). During this period, he closely worked with people belonging to the SC community. In March 2020, he became the state president of the BJP, the second person from a Dalit community to hold the post after S P Kirubanidhi.
In the 2021 TN Assembly election when the BJP was in an alliance with the AIADMK, Murugan contested from the Dharapuram reserved constituency and lost to DMK’s N Kayalvizhi Selvaraj, who went on to become state minister for Adi Dravidar Welfare, by a slim margin of 1,393 votes. Within a month, he was inducted into the Union cabinet.
Like Coimbatore, the BJP has won the Nilgiris seat twice in 1998 and 1999, after the infamous 1998 Coimbatore serial bomb blast incident. In 1998, contesting as part of an alliance with the AIADMK, BJP candidate M Master Mathan defeated Tamil Maanila Congress candidate S R Balasubramanian. A year later, this time contesting as part of the DMK alliance, he defeated Congress’s R Prabhu.
This is why the BJP fancies its chances of victory here. Murugan once said Nilgiris is among the nine Lok Sabha seats in the state the party has a good chance of winning. He started his poll-related works here quite early by setting up election offices, frequently visiting the district to meet the party cadre and interacting with the public.
2G scam back to haunt Raja after CBI’s appeal
In February, when the BJP nominated him to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, there was speculation that he might not enter the Lok Sabha poll fray. Yet, to the surprise of many, he was fielded as BJP candidate here. Given that the AIADMK won four of the six assembly segments under the Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency during the 2021 Assembly polls, Murugan was hopeful the Dravidian major’s support would help in taking him to Parliament from here. However, the AIADMK snapped its ties with BJP, causing him a setback. Nonetheless, the constituency has a sizable Hindu vote bank in places like Mettupalayam, Coonoor and Ooty, which is believed to help him.
Raja, a native of Perambalur, moved to Nilgiris in 2009 after his own constituency was converted into a general category one following delimitation. He polled 44.7% of votes and won by a margin of 86,021. He became minister of telecom in the Manmohan Singh cabinet. In February 2011, Raja was arrested by CBI in the 2G spectrum allocation scam. This led to his defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha election from Nilgiris.
Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi were acquitted in the 2G case by a special court in December 2017. He called former CAG Vinod Rai a “contract killer” hired by the government for the latter’s role in the collapse of the UPA-2 government. Raja came back with a bang to defeat the AIADMK’s M Thyagarajan in 2019 Lok Sabha polls by a margin of over 2 lakh votes. However, the 2G case has returned to haunt him as the Delhi High Court in March 2024 admitted the CBI’s appeal challenging the acquittal of Raja.
Compared to Murugan, Raja’s vociferous campaign could help him on the field. But Raja’s recent controversial speeches on Sanatana Dharma, Ramayana and Lord Ram have also created a storm in political circles.
