Urban voters, aware of the 2G affair, are seen as a deadly threat to the DMK and the alliance it heads

Will Tamilnadu vote against corruption or wink at it? The question is waiting to be answered this April.

With the Election Commission putting parties on a short leash, both the ruling DMK and the Opposition find themselves not quite ready to face the electorate on April 13. Logistical and other nonpolitical factors contributed to this unpreparedness, along with a lack of issues until 2G and other scams raised a storm.

It is not only that the alliances were not in place until March end. The parties did not also know who their own candidates and campaigners would be until about two weeks to the crucial polls. For the small parties, a long campaign time was more necessary as they needed to take their messages to constituencies where their opponents were likely to be one or the other Dravidian giant. For the Congress, too, identifying and sharing constituencies with the DMK has been an uphill task. The Left parties, too, have not had enough time to get their act together.

Just three weeks to woo the voter means, for the small parties, an expensive burst of campaigning and, for the big ones, no opportunity for a sustained show of money and muscle power. The voters may, thus, be influenced less by external persuasion than by their precampaign impressions. Whether this will lead to less of voting along party lines and more according to ‘conscience’, only the outcome will tell.

Dynastic politics has not so far been such an issue in Tamilnadu as at the Centre and in some other States. While the Nehru-Gandhi family has courted controversy in this respect for long, Haryana and Punjab have also seen clans in power play. In the south, members of the families of N. T. Rama Rao and Y.S. Rajashekar Reddy are in political fray. In Tamilnadu, two dominant past Chief Ministers could never be associated with dynastic politics: K. Kamaraj was a bachelor while C. N. Annadurai had no children. For the first time in 45 years of Dravidian party rule, the possibility of dynastic rule will weigh on the minds of Tamilnadu’s voters.

The two opposing camps for the 2011 elections are led by the DMK and the AIADMK.

The DMK has as its allies the Indian National Congress (INC), the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), and Thol. Thirumavalavan’s Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK). The DMK will fight for 121 seats in the 234-strong assembly. The Congress will contest 63 seats, the PMK 30, the VCK 10, and others nine.

Traditionally, Chennai is known as a DMK bastion, with Chepauk being the five-time Chief Minister’s favourite seat. However, in the aftermath of the 2G scandal, urban voters aware of it are seen as threat to DMK aspirations. While more than a dozen constituencies want to have the 87-year old DMK patriarch as candidate, his and his party’s preference for his return to his rural home-base in the Cauvery delta area was made known weeks before the announcement of candidates. He first contested from Kulithalai in 1957 and from Thanjavur in 1962.

Quite a few second-tier cities and third-tier towns have been given to the Congress. A significant share of Congress seats has gone to candidates below 40 years. Rahul Gandhi’s candidates have been given seats of their choice. Whether new faces will win votes for the Congress, despite the scams, remains to be seen.

In the Opposition camp, the AIADMK is contesting enough seats (160) to capture power on its own, if the electoral wind is favourable. Actor-politician Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) has got 41 seats. Film stareditor Sarath Kumar’s Akila Indiya Samathuva Makkal Katchi (AISMK) has been allocated two seats. The CPI (M) and the CPI are contesting 23 seats, more than they were allotted in the DMK-led alliance in 2006.

Despite the brief campaign time, AIADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa has been speaking to her constituencies about the 2G scam (she explains it to rural voters as “the telephone scam”) and corruption since November.

The country is keenly watching how Tamilnadu votes. How close is the Congress to realising its dream of making an impact in Tamilnadu, will Jayalalithaa’s charisma carry her to Fort St. George for the third time, or will this mean the beginning of a dynastic rule in this southern State? Wait a few weeks for the answers.

By Papri Sri Raman