In Madurai Central, DMK push for hattrick faces urban anger

Madurai: For a party whose chief minister is called Stalin and who claims to be an atheist, the DMK is ironically very strong in the temple town of Madurai, home to the famed Meenakshi temple. The DMK and its allies are aiming to have a clean sweep in all the ten constituencies of Madurai district. There are 58 seats in the southern belt.

One of the 'VIP' constituencies is Madurai Central where the Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple stands. This is where the high-profile Tamil Nadu Information Technology Minister PTR or Palanivel Thiaga Rajan is contesting from. He was once a very powerful figure in the DMK and the state's finance minister before an alleged leaked audio tape caused him problems. PTR, a former banker, is still the suave and intellectual face of the DMK. He won two assembly polls in 2016 and 2021 and wants to achieve a hat trick.

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Pitted against him is Sundar C, a filmmaker and actor, and a candidate from the Puthiya Neethi Katchi (PNK), an alliance partner of the AIADMK. While Sundar is officially a PNK candidate, he is contesting on AIADMK's symbol of two leaves. Sundar is the husband of actress turned politician Khushbu Sundar, state vice president of Tamil Nadu BJP.

For a district that has two heavy weight ministers, P Moorthy, another DMK minister representing Madurai East, the DMK has a lot to answer, especially on the lack of adequate infrastructure which has become an election issue.

Madurai Central, which is urban, lacks proper roads, has heavy traffic congestion, a shoddy garbage collection system, water logging during rains and an underground drainage system that throws the sewage back onto the streets causing floods during every rainfall.

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The election has turned interesting with the presence of two Muslim candidates -- the community constitutes around 10% of the 2.25 lakh electorate. Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) has fielded K Abdul Hakeem and VMS Mustafa is contesting from Tamilga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) actor Vijay's party. For Sundar, his best hope would be that the TVK eats into the DMK vote bank, which could pose some headaches for PTR.