The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Gains for Congress in western part

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Friday, May 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Gains for Congress in western part

By K.V. Prasad

COIMBATORE, MAY 13. As the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance made a clean sweep of all the 39 seats in the State, its constituent, Congress, made significant gains in western Tamil Nadu.

Winning all the four seats it contested in the region, the Congress has captured constituencies that had been considered bastions of the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

The margins by which the Congress candidates won against their AIADMK or Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rivals sought to indicate that their party made deep inroads into the traditional vote bank of the ruling party.

Salem, Rasipuram, Tiruchengode and Gobichettipalayam (the last one since 1980), the last four seats that returned AIADMK candidates with such regularity that these came to be known as the impregnable fortresses of the party.

Of the four victors this time, two are former presidents of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee: K.V. Thangkabalu from Salem (also a former Union Minister) and E.V.K.S. Elangovan from Gobichettipalayam. Both have defeated AIADMK candidates in this election (A. Rajasekaran and N.R. Govindarajar respectively).

The former Union Minister, R. Prabhu, makes a comeback in the Nilgiris after his previous win in 1991. The other victorious Congress candidate is Rani (Rasipuram).

As for Tiruchengode, this erstwhile AIADMK stronghold has now gone to its arch rival, DMK (Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan). Besides the wins by Mr. Thangkabalu and Mr. Elangovan, the one for Mr. Prabhu in the Nilgiris is the success for the party in that constituency after a gap of 13 years. He lost to the now Congress Legislature Party leader, S.R. Balasubramaniam, in 1996 when the latter contested as candidate of the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), a breakaway faction of the Congress that has now merged with the parent party.

Master Mathan of the BJP won in 1998, defeating Mr. Balasubramaniam (TMC) and Mr. Prabhu ended up with the third spot. In 1999, Mr. Prabhu lost to Mr. Mathan. This time, Mr. Prabhu defeated the latter by a margin of 2,36,502 votes. This is his fifth win. The earlier ones were in 1980, 1984, 1989 and 1991. The other gain for the Congress is the Rasipuram seat. Its candidate, K. Rani, defeated the AIADMK's S. Anbazhagan.

The Communist Party of India regains Coimbatore, once its bastion. The party MP-elect, K. Subbarayon, has his sweet revenge against the AIADMK, which as the alliance leader denied him a ticket to contest from Tirupur in the last Assembly elections.

The Congress' win in the Nilgiris and the CPI's in Coimbatore come at a time when the BJP was attempting a hat-trick in both seats and was considering both as its strongholds ever since the largely bomb blasts-aided victories in 1998.

In Pollachi, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) candidate, C. Krishnan, has registered a second consecutive win defeating his AIADMK rival, G. Murugan.

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