AIADMK Eyes SC Vote Revival in Madurantakam and Dharapuram Bypolls

The AIADMK is looking to arrest a steady erosion of support among Scheduled Caste voters as it fields candidates in the byelections to the Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly constituencies, both reserved for the community.

The party's record in SC-reserved seats has traced a downward curve. It won 32 of the 44 reserved constituencies in the 2016 Assembly election, but the figure fell to 15 in 2021 and further to eight in the most recent contest. Two of its newly elected SC legislators, K. Maragatham Kumaravel and P. Sathyabama, left the party after voting in favour of the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam during a trust motion in the Assembly in mid-May.

C.K. Thamizharasan, a four-time MLA elected three times on an AIADMK ticket, attributes the slide to the present leadership's failure to sustain pro-SC policies and to devise poll-time strategies for securing the community's vote. He recalled the abolition of the hereditary Village Officers system and the induction of SCs into the existing Village Administrative Officers framework under party founder M.G. Ramachandran in the early 1980s, calling it a revolutionary step. He also pointed to the Jayalalithaa government's relaxation, during 2011-16, of norms for the post-matriculation scholarship scheme for SC and ST students pursuing engineering and professional courses, and said eligibility conditions were tightened after her death, placing the scheme virtually beyond the reach of SC students. In his view, the SC vote bank has become fragmented, and while the TVK government has eight SC Ministers, they were not included willingly.

M. Anandan, a newly appointed deputy general secretary of the TVK and Adi-Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Minister in the first Jayalalithaa Cabinet of 1991-96, disputes that reading. He contends that the DMK and the AIADMK, between them in power for nearly six decades, performed poorly on fair representation for SCs, whereas the TVK accords the community as much importance as others in its organisational scheme.

AIADMK Rajya Sabha member M. Dhanapal maintains that general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami has followed in the footsteps of MGR and Jayalalithaa, who went out of their way to accommodate SCs. He cited the rural habitation scheme implemented during Mr. Palaniswami's tenure as Chief Minister and noted that former Minister Varagur A. Arunachalam, who belongs to the community, was made headquarters secretary, a post next only to the general secretary.

V. Sampathkumar, Harur MLA and the party's secretary of the Harur (north) panchayat union, highlighted the 7.5% horizontal reservation for government school students introduced under Mr. Palaniswami, saying it has been a big hit among SCs because a large section of the community studies only in government schools. Welfare measures such as the distribution of milch cows and sheep, he added, have also mattered greatly.

Both the MP and the Harur MLA expressed confidence that the AIADMK would bounce back in the byelection, saying people had begun to realise they had taken a wrong decision.