TN Congress Party – An Analysis

There was once a time when Congress party was the dominant party in the Tamil Nadu with leaders like Kamaraj. However, ever since Kamaraj's demise the Tamil Nadu State Congress party has been witnessing a continuous decline in popularity. Groupism within the state unit has prevented any mass leader from emerging. Moreover, the state leaders are completely at the behest of the High Command and have no say in important matters like alliances, seat sharing, and candidates. Everytime during elections, TNCC is affected by internal bickering and dissidence more than any other party. This time is also no different. The party is contesting its first election after the death of Moopanar, who was their most popular leader in the state for a couple of decades. Today, there are three major groups within the Congress. The first one led by GK Vasan (son of Moopanar), second one is headed by former TNCC chief and present Union Minister Elangovan, and the last group is led by Finance Minister P Chidambaram. None of these groups have any major clout among the people. In this election, the Congress party is contesting 48 seats. Many observers feel that this is a lot given the fact that the popularity of the party has declined substantially and isn't a major force anymore in the state. Its will be interesting to see how many seats the party will manage to win in this election and if it can revive itself…

Top politicians file nomination

More politicians filed their nomination papers on Monday. Significant among them are former TN CM Karunanidhi, who filed his nomination from the Chepauk constituency. This is the third successive time Karunanidhi is contesting from the constituency. This is also the 11 time Karunanidhi is contesting elections. He has emerged victories in all the previous ten times he has contested. During the filing, Karunanidhi declared assets to the tune of 25 crores. Others who filed their nomination on Monday were DMDK chief Vijaykanth, who was contesting from Viruddachalam, DMK deputy secretary and former Chennai Mayor MK Stalin, who is contesting from the Thousand Light seat, and JP state unit chief Chandraleka, who is contesting from the Mylapore seat.

Sarath Kumar joins ADMK

Tamil actor Sarath Kumar joined the ADMK in the presence of TN CM Jayalalitha yesterday. He was accompanied by his wife Radhika. It may be recollected that Sarath Kumar resigned from the DMK a few days back complaining that his "hard work" wasn't respected by the party. Sarath Kumar is no stranger to the ADMK. As a matter of fact, he started his political career with the party before switching loyalties to the DMK in 1996. Its quite a surprising decision given the fact that he was considered close to Karunanidhi and the business relationship his wife shares with SUN TV. But differences propped up with the DMK's leadership when he was refused a party ticket for this upcoming elections. Sarath Kumar has the strong backing of the Nadar community which is dominant in the southern parts of the state. But more importantly, DMK has lost yet another star campaigner to the ADMK front. Sarath Kumar is undoubtedly a good crowd puller as seen from the previous elections, and given the fact that the DMK is already low on star power, this move by the actor is a big blow to the party.