National

The Rub Of The Green

Sivaganga: P. Chidambaram

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The Rub Of The Green
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What hits you most about Sivaganga parliamentary constituency is that you can’t throw a stone here without hitting a bank. The constituency has elected India’s present home minister six times, and in his earlier avatar as finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram got 57 public and private banks, many with ATMs, to come and set up shop here. Sixty more banks are expected.

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Just down the road from his ancestral house in Kandanur—where he stays on his visits here to connect with his constituents—are branches of the ICICI Bank and Canara Bank. The incongruous part is the roadside hawker selling provisions and cold drinks across the road from the swanky ATM, which came up about a year ago. The disabled hawker, Shivanand, does not have an ATM card. "Adakella vasadhi venum (One has to be rich)," he says. He complains that he lost Rs 50,000 when the local panchayat demolished his shop. "I did complain to my MP, but he said don’t bother me with these small things. Take it up with the village administrators."

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While we are having a chat, a woman comes in. She butts in saying, "Serve me my tea quickly, I need to get home before the power goes at 5 pm." She says that since the summer set in—being a dry region the land heats up quickly here—the power goes off for two hours in the morning too. Life is tough for the people in an area where there is no industry to speak of and farming, which is rain-dependent, is the major vocation. More often than not you hear the refrain, "We have a powerful minister representing us, but our lives are no way better...."

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But these kind of generalities irritate Karti, Chidambaram’s 37-year-old son who runs the campaign while the minister is occupied with matters of state. "It’s like people in Guwahati demanding that the PM should get the World Bank headquarters there," he says. He hands over a booklet that enumerates all Chidambaram has done since he was first elected from here in 1984. "Earlier, my father viewed Sivaganga from the India point of view. Now he feels that India should be viewed from the Sivaganga point of view. And that is why the loan waiver and NREGA schemes, the student loans (20,000 have taken it) have all been launched here first."

Karti claims Chidambaram also leveraged his clout to get IFFCO to deepen and strengthen 176 water tanks, got Infosys to recruit eight Sivaganga youth, got ITC through a public-private partnership to launch 100 model markets. The Apollo Reach hospital and Vasan Eyecare hospitals are coming up. From the MPLADS he has just spent Rs 2.78 crore, which pales before all the work he has implemented as a senior Union minister.

The lack of industry is still a sore point though. There are graphite deposits that could be exploited for jobs, say locals. But Karti says there were no takers although tenders were floated several times because the graphite only had 97 per cent purity. "It’s easy to say there are no industries, but companies come where there is infrastructure," he says. "One must remember it is an agricultural district and look at it holistically," says Karti. The good news is that Sterlite and Best and Compton will be coming soon. And already Sivaganga has a sugar factory.

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Chidambaram’s assets are his brand equity, that he is above petty politics, and not corrupt, says his son. The no-nonsense minister has an intimidating approach although he was talking of Dalit welfare at a meeting organised by the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi during his whistle-stop tour around the constituency. As always, he has the last word: "One must remember that an MP is not the king of his constituency, the writ of the state runs large."

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