Lok Sabha 2024: Why Coimbatore Is Likely To Be A Big Battle

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has chosen to contest the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat this coming elections.

While the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the seat is from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), the DMK has chosen to allot Dindigul to the communists instead of Coimbatore.

Among the reasons stated by political observers for the DMK's decision not to give the seat to the CPI(M) this time are bad feedback regarding P R Natarajan, the incumbent MP, and the party's desire to prove a point in the Kongu region, which has historically been a stronghold of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

Dr R Mahendran, the joint secretary of the DMK's IT Wing, is likely to be the party's candidate. He was previously with actor Kamal Haasan's Makkal Neethi Maiam (MNM) and secured 11.6 per cent of the votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

He had also contested as the MNM's candidate from the Singanallur assembly constituency in the 2021 assembly elections and secured 18.4 per cent votes.

In both these elections, the MNM was not with the DMK.

DMK's performance in this region has borough it embarrassment, with the party not winning a single assembly seat out of the 10 in the Coimbatore district. It lost all the seats to it's bitter rivals the AIADMK and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had contested as allies.

In Coimbatore South, Vanathi Srinivasan of the BJP won against actor Kamal Haasan of MNM. The DMK front's candidate, Mayura Jayakumar S, from the Congress, finished third.

A look at the results of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections for Coimbatore seat clearly shows how the DMK has been weaker than the AIADMK in the region.

This was an election in which neither the BJP and AIADMK nor the DMK and Congress were together. The CPI(M) too was not with the DMK.

The AIADMK won the seat with 36.7 per cent votes and BJP's C P Radhakrishnan finished a close second with 33.1 per cent votes. The DMK finished in third place with 18.4 per cent.

The DMK would also be wanting to bust the narrative that it has been weakened in the region due to the absence of former minister Senthil Balaji, who is considered to be responsible for improving the party's fortunes in the region by mobilising resources.

Coimbatore is important for the opposition AIADMK and BJP too. If anything, the aforementioned results of 2014, when they were not together in an alliance, show that both of them have it in them to win the seat.

Both are likely to field strong candidates from the seat and give a tough fight to the ruling DMK.

The BJP could even field its state president K Annamalai, which would then make it an even more interesting battle to watch out for.