Jailed Senthil Balaji becomes an election issue in Coimbatore

Balaji was arrested in June 2023 for his involvement in a cash-for-jobs scam. The DMK finalised the name of Ganapathi P Rajkumar, a former AIADMK mayor who switched to the DMK in 2020, only after Balaji gave his green signal.

Chennai: He may be cooling his heels in Puzhal Central prison here, but former DMK minister V Senthil Balaji continues to be relevant in Coimbatore, where the ruling party is engaged in an intense triangular contest with the AIADMK and BJP. 

A key strategist who turned the fortunes around for the DMK in Coimbatore in the 2022 municipal elections after the party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2021 polls by losing all 10 constituencies in the district, Balaji was arrested in June 2023 for his involvement in a cash-for-jobs scam as transport minister in the 2011-2016 AIADMK dispensation. 

The DMK, according to party leaders, finalised the name of Ganapathi P Rajkumar, a former AIADMK mayor who switched to the DMK in 2020, only after Balaji gave his green signal. Rajkumar is also a Gounder by caste, much like Annamalai. 

Though Balaji isn’t physically present in Coimbatore, his significance is visible as the campaign of the principal Opposition party, AIADMK, is centered around him, albeit for now. The party is going to the town by alleging that the DMK and BJP have “struck a deal” under which the Dravidian party will ensure Annamalai’s victory in return for the release of Balaji, whose numerous bail petitions have been dismissed, from jail.  

“I read a message on WhatsApp, and I don’t know its veracity. It says the DMK has fielded a weak candidate in Rajkumar as they want someone who hails from Karur (Balaji) to be released. If that Karur man (Balaji) has to be released from jail, this Karur man (Annamalai) should win the polls. This seems to be the deal,” Ramachandran alleged in one of the meetings. 

However, the DMK dismisses the allegations as “baseless” by asserting that Rajkumar, who also hails from the dominant Gounder community, much like Annamalai, is a “strong candidate.” A party leader said it was the DMK that specifically asked for the Coimbatore seat from ally CPM after indications that the BJP would contest from the constituency by fielding Annamalai.

“We want to tell the BJP that they can’t win the seat, and that’s why we are fighting from Coimbatore. Why should we field a weak candidate? This only shows that the AIADMK is worried about our strategy and Balaji’s political acumen. Why should they drag him unnecessarily?” the leader asked. 

Coimbatore has been a tough political terrain for the DMK in the past decade, with the AIADMK making the district its fortress—in the 2021 polls when the DMK swept across the state, the Opposition alliance won 33 of the 50 seats in the western region. DMK won the seat last in 1996, after losing in 1998 and 2014, while it allotted the seat to alliance partners in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2019. 

Balaji (48) has been a strategist for every party he has been part of—the AIADMK, the AMMK of T T V Dhinakaran, and now DMK. His ascension in J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK was meteoric, and so was his fall—he was first elected to the assembly in 2006 from Karur and was made a minister in 2011 when he won the second time. 

However, he fell from Jayalalithaa’s favour and was removed as transport minister in 2015, he shifted to AMMK after her death and joined the DMK. After joining the DMK in 2018, Balaji won from Aravakurichi in the by-elections and delivered all six assembly seats for the party in the 2021 polls. Within months of the victory, Balaji was sent to Coimbatore for the civic body elections, in which the DMK romped home in the entire region.