DMK ropes in ex-AIADMK ministers to make a mark in Tamil Nadu's Kongu region

For long, the Kongu Mandalam or Western Region has remained an impregnable bastion for Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK. The 2021 April assembly election was no different – the alliance led by DMK won just 17 of the 50 seats in the region, while it almost swept all other regions in the state.

The party’s poor performance in the western belt has prompted the DMK to start focusing on the region with elections to local bodies expected to be held by the end of this year. DMK’s past efforts to strengthen the organisation at the grassroots in the region have not borne fruits owing to a slew of reasons including the lack of local leaders who have their ears to the ground.

In the seven districts of the western region – Salem, Karur, Erode, Tiruppur, Namakkal, Coimbatore, and Nilgiris – DMK performed well only in the Karur district where it won all four seats. The victory is largely credited to the organisational skills of Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji, who jumped ship from T T V Dhinakaran’s AMMK to DMK in 2018.

With an eye on making inroads into the region, the DMK inducted three MLAs from Western Tamil Nadu into the Cabinet. R Sakkarapani, who is from Dindigul district in south TN, but belongs to the dominant Gounders of the western region, was also accommodated in the cabinet.

The party has now roped in two influential leaders – former AIADMK ministers – from the region who have a considerable following. Both belong to the Gounder community, which has always put its weight behind the AIADMK in assembly elections.

It is with the aim of expanding its base in Coimbatore, the party inducted R Mahendran, who was the vice-president of actor Kamal Hassan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM).

Mahendran is quite influential, and he scored over 1.40 lakh votes in Coimbatore in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls – in fact, Chief Minister and DMK chief M K Stalin said the party would have won a few more seats in the Kongu region if people like Mahendran were with the DMK during elections.

DMK feels the need to focus on the region not just because AIADMK is strong here, but this is the region that the BJP also considers as the perfect launchpad for its larger political role in the state. Of the four seats the BJP won, two are from the western region. The new BJP chief K Annamalai, a former Karnataka-cadre IPS officer, also hails from Kongu region.

“The election results have reiterated that we need to work hard in the Kongu region. The DMK was way ahead of the AIADMK alliance in all other regions of the state except in Kongu. As a responsible political party, we need to correct our mistakes and that is what we are doing now. We are getting ready for local body polls,” a senior DMK leader told DH.

Senior journalist R Bhagwan Singh told DH it was only natural for any political party to identify weak spots and take remedial steps after elections.

“Kongu has proved to be DMK’s weakest spot this election. The party has made the first move by getting Mahendran into its fold. Mahendran enjoys goodwill among people, and he can be helpful for the DMK. I see many more leaders from AIADMK in the west joining the DMK in the coming months,” he said.