Kanimozhi banks on her roots to get elected from Tuticorin

Stalin went through a long period of political incubation and grooming before he became the working president of the DMK when his father, M Karunanidhi’s health declined. Stalin and his brother Azhagiri were marked out as political prospects early on. Kanimozhi, however, seemed content to be known as a writer, poet and journalist. She has said in media interviews that the party was keen on her filling the space created by the death of former Union minister Murasoli Maran in 2003. But she resisted at that time. She was visible in cultural events and organized a major arts festival called Chennai Sangamam. 

In 2007, as the DMK became entrenched in New Delhi’s corridors of power, Kanimozhi became a Rajya Sabha MP. Murasoli Maran had played the role of the DMK’s interlocutor in New Delhi, and through the Rajya Sabha seat Kanimozhi was being groomed to be the party’s representative in the capital. In 2013, she started her second term in Rajya Sabha.

In 2014, she adopted Venkateswarapuram, a village in Sathankulam taluk, Thoothukudi, under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana or the MP’s model village scheme. Venkateswarapuram had reasons to be adopted. Though its official name was Venkateswarapuram, locals called it Peikkulam (literally a ghost village). Many of the residents had moved out in search of jobs and only a few continued to live there.

Kanimozhi has organized two job fairs that helped provide jobs to local youth. Career guidance programmes were organised for the school students of that panchayat. During one of her official visits to the village, a teacher complained to her that the library in the village lacked books. Within a couple of days, Kanimozhi sent around 300 to 400 books from her own collection to the library. She used her MP funds to build a 10-bed labour ward in the primary health center. “Now this labour ward serves women from more than 20 hamlets,” says a woman outpatient. 

Kanimozhi used her MP funds in desilting and funded a bund at a 67-acre pond called Musalaikkulam. “She allocated ₹15 lakh to erect solar panelled street lights and she took steps to get necessary permission to bring a Kendriya Vidyalaya school in this region. But all the schemes were stalled by the present ruling party,” says Sridhar, a resident of the region.

Kanimozhi has nurtured the constituency over the years and applied for party ticket this time. There was no other applicant from the party for the Tuticorin ticket.

Why Tuticorin? Observers say that her mother comes from the nadar caste group and has been associated with it. In Tuticorin constituency, nadars are not only numerous but play a key role in local business. This was likely a factor. Party sources say that Kanimozhi could have contested from Central Chennai but Dayanidhi Maran had to be accommodated and he wouldn’t fit anywhere else. 

Kanimozhi would also help to unify the party that has been plagued by factions at the district level. MLAs Geetha Jeevan and Anitha Radhakrishnan have been at loggerheads and fielding either of them would have led to the other working against the candidate. To win the seat, Kanimozhi was the ideal candidate as far as the DMK was concerned.

Kanimozhi’s main rival is Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, state BJP chief. Her father Kumari Ananthan is a veteran Congress leader. He was elected to the Assembly in 1989 and 1991 from Sathankulam constituency.

Kanimozhi has the image of being pro-dalit, too, through her writings and so on. She garlanded the statue of Immanuel Sekaran, a dalit leader from pallar community who was murdered in the 1950s. That event triggered a major caste clash between thevars and dalits. Caste may therefore be a subtext for both the candidates but for larger issues of who should represent Tuticorin, voters would be the key.