Swing after shockwaves

Candidates of the DMK and TMC sought to assure worried party managers in the headquarters that the blasts would not knock them out. There was little time for damage containment as campaigning was over for the first phase and those in charge of mobilising the votes were wringing their hands in despair even as the rival combine was ready to make windfall gains.

But with the results out, both Karunanidhi and his TMC ally, G.K.Moopanar, and other leaders of their front were quick to admit that the blasts had played a vital role in tilting the scales in favour of the AIADMK-BJP combine. While the DMK-TMC leaders were earlier picturising the BJP as the party which sought to usher in communalism with all its ugly manifestations into the State, the average voter saw the BJP in the post-blasts situation as the victim and not the aggressor.

After all, the public meeting venue in Coimbatore where BJP president L.K. Advani was to address a meeting at 4 p.m. on February 14 was one of the targets.

The pattern of victories of the AIADMK-BJP front in a vast area around Coimbatore — nearly a dozen constituencies in western Tamil Nadu — reveals a high degree of sympathy and support for this front after the explosions.

Privately, the DMK-TMC camp, prior to the blasts itself, was not hopeful of getting more than 25-28 seats of the 39 in Tamil Nadu. However, the explosions meant that another dozen seats were lost. An indicator of the blastsfuelling an AIADMK-BJP victory in that belt are the high margins of victory.

The highest, of course, was the Coimbatore parliamentary constituency, with 1,44,676. The next to follow was the adjoining Salem constituency — 1,32,415. Gobichettipalayam, also close to Coimbatore district, had a high margin — the fourth highest in the State with 1,14,642. And the fifth in terms of victory margin was Tiruchengode (1,04,809), again close to Coimbatore. Dharmapuri was sixth (margin 99,247) and Pollachi eighth (95,400). Of the top five margins, four constituencies figured in Coimbatore and adjoining districts.

Lok Sabha constituencies like Nilgiris and Pollachi, which have some segments in the Coimbatore district, were counted as dead losses by the DMK-TMC camp after the blasts, well before polling was undertaken.Sure seats like Palani and Karur for the TMC fell by the wayside with the blast from Coimbatore hitting these adjoining constituencies as well. It was only the strong base of the TMC here that preventeda runaway success for the Opposition. Similarly, constituencies like Rasipuram, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Periakulam and Dindigul could not but have been affected by the incidents in the nearby areas.

In the ultimate analysis, the few successes for the DMK-TMC camp have come in the non-western sector. Almost all of them were achieved along the eastern coast — Sivaganga, Myladuthurai, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Pondicherry, Chennai North, South and Central and Tirupattur in North Tamil Nadu, besides Nagercoil, which includes Kanyakumari – the only step into the western coast.

The results have shown a very sharp geographical divide the west and the south almost fully passing into the hands of the AIADMK-BJP front and the DMK-TMC camp having something to cheer about only along the eastern coast (see chart) which is the farthest distance from the impact of the blasts. In fact, right along the eastern coast, one can find that even the constituencies lost by the DMK-TMC front have witnessed low margins. Theresults could indeed have gone either way. Chengalpattu (22,916), Sriperumbudur (23,795), Tindivanam (31,732), Cuddalore (27,129) along the eastern coast in northern Tamil Nadu serve as ideal examples.

The coastal constituencies in southern Tamil Nadu show a similar picture. The difference between the two fronts was only 6,954 in Tirunelveli, 24,092 in Ramanathapuram, 46,855 in Tiruchendur, and 30,520 in Pudukottai (these seats went to the AIADMK-led front).

The election scenario in Tamil Nadu has in the past revealed a North-South divide with the DMK generally performing well in the North and the AIADMK and the Congress in the south. This is the first time that a polarisation has set in along the western coast, too, influenced largely by the blasts. sIf the Sriperumbudur blast in May 1991 helped the AIADMK and its then ally, the Congress, to a sweep in the elections, the blasts in Coimbatore and the fear psychosis created by raids and discoveries of more bombs in other parts of the State helped theAIADMK again in 1998 this time with the BJP as its beneficiary.

The BJP, which began the election campaign with the hope of at least securing the Nagercoil seat this time (it came a close second there in the 1996 elections), ironically lost the Nagercoil constituency but won the Coimbatore and Nilgiris constituencies on the western side comfortably, apart from Tiruchirapalli in central Tamil Nadu where Advani, fresh from his visit to Coimbatore on that fateful day, addressed a public meeting along with the AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha.