Byelections in Madurantakam and Dharapuram may test AIADMK’s sway over Scheduled Caste voters

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which has put up its candidates in the byelections to the Madurantakam and Dharapuram Assembly constituencies, both reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs), hopes to reverse the trend of declining fortunes in its base among the SCs.

After the party bagged the highest number of 32 of the 44 reserved seats in the 2016 Assembly election, its tally among the SC constituencies has been going southward. In 2021, the number was 15, and five years later, it went down to eight. Of the newly-elected SC legislators of the AIADMK, two — K. Maragatham Kumaravel and P. Sathyabama — quit the organisation after voting in favour of the ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) in the trust motion on the floor of the Assembly in mid-May.

C.K. Thamizharasan, a four-time MLA who was elected thrice on an AIADMK ticket, blames the party’s present leadership for not having continued pro-SC policies while in power and worked out strategies, at the time of polls, to get the community’s vote. Recalling the abolition of the hereditary system of Village Officers (VOs) and the appointment of SCs in the existing scheme of Village Administrative Officers (VAOs) when party founder M.G. Ramachandran was Chief Minister in the early 1980s, Mr. Thamizharasan describes the move as a “revolutionary step.” Also, when Jayalalithaa was in power during 2011-16, her government had relaxed norms of the post-matriculation scholarship scheme for students of the SCs/Scheduled Tribes (STs) for pursuing engineering and other professional courses. But after her death, the eligibility conditions were made “stringent,” rendering the scheme “virtually out of bounds” for SC students, Mr. Tamizharasan pointed out. He emphasises that the SC vote bank had become fragmented over the years, and though the TVK regime has eight SC Ministers, the ruling party has not included them “willingly”.

Cabinet representation

M. Anandan, one of the newly-appointed deputy general secretaries of the TVK and who was Adi-Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Minister in the first Cabinet of the Jayalalithaa regime (1991-96), however, contests the view regarding the accommodation of SC Ministers and argues that though the DMK and the AIADMK had occupied power collectively for nearly 60 years, their performance with regard to providing “fair representation” to the SCs was “poor,” whereas the TVK, in its organisational scheme of things, gives as much importance to the SCs as others.

M. Dhanapal, AIADMK Rajya Sabha member, asserts that party general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami has been following in the footsteps of his predecessors, MGR and Jayalalithaa, who “went out of the way” to accommodate SCs. Asserting that Mr. Palaniswami, as Chief Minister, had implemented many schemes for SC welfare, the MP refers to the rural habitation scheme, which, according to him, was beneficial to the community. Within the organisation, former Minister Varagur A. Arunachalam, who belongs to the community, had been made headquarters secretary, which is “next only” to the general secretary, Mr. Dhanapal adds.

V. Sampathkumar, Harur MLA and the party’s secretary of Harur (north) panchayat union, points out that the 7.5% horizontal reservation scheme for students of government schools, launched during Mr. Palaniswami’s Chief Ministership, “has been a big hit” among the SCs for the simple reason that a large chunk of the community continues to study only in government schools. Besides, many other welfare measures, such as the distribution of milch cows/sheep, have “meant a lot” for the community.

The MP and Harur MLA are confident that the AIADMK will bounce back in the byelection as people had “started realising” that they had taken “a wrong decision.”