DMK vs AIADMK vs BJP: Tamil Nadu gears up for 3-way battle after high-voltage campaigning

Tamil Nadu Lok Sabha election: About 6.23 crore voters will choose from the 950 candidates in the fray.

Tamil Nadu goes to vote on April 19 in all 39 Lok Sabha seats after a short but high-voltage campaign in the limited time available for the first phase. Besides the two national fronts, the BJP's NDA and the DMK-Congress’s INDIA block, the AIADMK is contesting without a national-level ally, as is the fringe player Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK) with Tamil nationalism as its campaign theme.

About 6.23 crore voters will choose from the 950 candidates in the fray. For the NDA, the most prominent candidates are from the BJP: its state president K Annamalai, former Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, and former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan. Its major ally, the PMK, chose Soumya Anbumani as its face in Dharmapuri. The former AIADMK stalwarts contesting in alliance with the BJP are O Paneerselvam and TTV Dinakaran.

For the INDIA bloc, former Union Ministers Dayanidhi Maran, A Raja, and TR Baalu headline the DMK list alongside Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, daughter of former party president M Karunanidhi and sister of current Chief Minister MK Stalin. Rahul Gandhi could not manage extensive electioneering, his time taken up by his Wayanad constituency in neighbouring Kerala is going to the polls in the second phase on April 26.

The AIADMK decided to field less-known faces, barring J Jayavardhan, son of former TN Minister D Jayakumar, and Vijaya Prabhakaran of the DMDK, who is the son of actor turned politician Vijayakanth, who died four months ago.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the campaign for the NDA, portraying the DMK as anti-Hindu, dynastic, and corrupt. Stalin kept the focus on the authoritarian nature of Modi and the BJP, bringing into play allegations of misuse of Central government agencies for political purposes.

For the AIADMK, former Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy targeted mostly the DMK, treating the Lok Sabha election for the most part as a referendum on the DMK state government and the Electoral Bonds scandal.

NTK founder Seeman fielded women in half the seats, and is expected to increase the vote share of his party while remaining a marginal player.

State-related issues such as welfare schemes and relief funds and Katchatheevu dominated the campaign; the CAA amendment also figured in the speeches, but partly in relation to the demand for bringing Sri Lankan Tamils as its beneficiaries. However, Ram Mandir and Article 370 did not have as much traction as in North India.

Interestingly, the BJP and the AIADMK kept the attacks on each other to a minimum, while the DMK focused on attacking the BJP as much as the AIADMK.

It would be known on June 4, if the Modi-led BJP’s push to make inroads into Tamil Nadu on its own has worked.