Battlelines drawn, DMK, AIADMK speed up seat talks

With alliances more or less firmed up, battlelines are being drawn in what could be one of the toughest assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, slated for May. While the DMK and the Congress are firmly together, the VCK and the Muslim League will team up with the DMK. On the AIADMK front, the MDMK and Left parties have already conveyed to J Jayalalithaa their plans to remain with her party. The PMK and the DMDK are likely to announce allegiance to the DMK and AIADMK respectively notwithstanding the subtle power dynamics at play.

Alliances are yet to be publicly firmed up and seats shared out. The AIADMK-led front's main poll plank could be the spectrum controversy, corruption, rising costs and the recent killings of fishermen allegedly by the Sri Lankan Navy. But corruption has never been the sole factor to determine poll outcome in the past except in the 1996 elections when the AIADMK was voted out of power following allegations of corruption in Jayalalithaa's first tenure. However, with the opposition focussed sharply on spectrum issue, it could well add heat to a high-decibel campaign.

The alliance arithmetic, caste factor and issues that dominate the forthcoming polls have political circles guessing though. "The problem is that arithmetic does not work in these elections. If arithmetic worked, Vijayakanth, whose DMDK contested on its own in the 2006 assembly elections would not have won in the Vanniyar-dominated Vriddhachalam assembly constituency, a PMK stronghold," said jo [...]