Chennai Corner

No water, no jobs, no women
Pennagaram means the city of women. That none of the major parties, DMK/AIADMK/ PMK/ DMDK have put up a woman candidate in a bypoll, weeks after the Women’s Reservation Bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha amidst high drama, could be happenstance. But the drama happening in this constituency, where the Hoganekal Water project is still a mirage, is not.  

Remember Tamil Nadu and Karnataka came close to a war on this issue two years ago, and the man who rowed down the Cauvery river (which forms the picturesque waterfalls in the area) giving life to the water wars between the two neighbours is today the CM of Karnataka and goes by the name Yeddyurappa. And the other man at the centre of that drama, Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi is caught between his warring sons, M K Azhagiri and M K Stalin after his eldest son made it clear that nobody could replace his dad. 

Nearly 40 years after the signing of an agreement with Karnataka to provide drinking water to the districts of Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri, people here are racked by disease because of the high fluoride content in the water. Last December, during a trip to Krishnagiri, Stalin said the government would finalise all tenders (five global tenders were floated) for the Hogenakkal Integrated Drinking Water Project by March 2010. He also said that the project would be implemented as separate schemes in the Hosur region and remaining project sites. That’s still his campaign promise this time. People are continuing to be told that the water project will come in 2012. Meanwhile, the cost of the project has jumped by Rs 500 crore.

While the CM showed single-minded dedication to finish the assembly and secretariat complex, he has showed no interest to projects that will actually better the lives of people. In Pennagaram, water is so scarce that women have to trudge kilometers to get five pots of water once in three days. If the water project came up, the DMK would win hands down here. After all, how does having a swanky assembly help the people? But a water project won’t give the CM an ego boost, right?

Winner takes it all
Coming back to the bypoll drama, the area (on the Karnatka border and with a population of nearly two lakhs) has become yet another symbol for a political sop opera. It’s another issue that so many resources to conduct an election are being wasted less than a year before Pennagaram will go to the polls again with the other 233 assembly constituencies in the state. Anyway, it’s the last bypoll before an assembly election and the winner here takes all. And that is why CM M Karunanidhi, despite being wheelchair-bound, has campaigned personally, the first time he has done so in any bypoll. After winning most of the 10 bypolls since it came to power in 2006, the DMK cannot afford to slack off in the last lap. According to deputy CM Stalin, all other parties will lose their deposits and Kalaignar was going there only so that “the margin of victory can go up from 40,000 to 50,000”. AIADMK chief Jayalalitha cannot afford to lose after tasting defeat in all the other bypolls held, not to mention the desertions, including MLAs, from her party to the enemy camp that she is seeing regularly. So she went out there too, soon after her trip to her retreat in Kodanadu, but will it help? Would she have had a better chance if the opposition had united behind her? It’s too late for that anyway.

Sop Opera
Azhagiri who patented the Thirumangalam formula – rain money and goodies on people in return for a vote – may not physically (in fact he and his wife have gone on a 10-day “official” trip to Australia days after getting their producer son Durai Azhagiri engaged, not to mention creating a political storm about the succession his father has meticulously planned ) be present in Pennagaram, but his spirit is what voters are getting acquainted with in this election. Whether it is Stalin, Jayalalitha or PMK’s Ramadoss, who is desperate to get the seat and would have got it easily had he been part of an alliance because this is a Vanniyar belt, they all are lavishing voters with poll bonanzas.

Just how badly off people are in this parched land which is forcing them to go to neighbouring Kerala or Karnataka in search of a job, and how sudden riches have now come to them is evident from what a daily wage earner says: “We have to stand in the sun for 10 hours everyday and make chips to get Rs 150 or Rs 200 a day in Ernakulam in Kerala. But now we get Rs 1000 notes without doing a bit of work.” And this is not all; voters get money from all sides. So when DMDK’s Vijaykanth appeals to people not to be swayed by “money power”, voters take it with a pinch of salt. Earlier they would demand a better road/ drinking water or something that would benefit the constituency, now, in a clear reflection of trends in society voters see an opportunity for bettering their own lives during elections and take it. It seems of little consequence that Jayalalitha has highlighted the failures of the DMK government in her 17 meetings or that Stalin has patted himself on the back during his four-day tour for all that the DMK government has done.

The DMK government and party has got them used to freebies and that’s all it comes down to. And to hoodwink election observers, beneficiaries are told to collect their gifts in a town/village that is outside the constituency. Among the gifts that have been distributed are backpacks for schoolchildren with Stalin’s picture, saris and dhotis. Biryani packets and liquor is a courtesy from all parties.

Hoodwinking the EC
Naresh Gupta, Chief Electoral Officer, seems helpless amidst this inundation of goodies. “It’s very challenging,” he admits mildly about the money that is being poured. After finding that the statement of accounts by different candidates did not “reflect the ground reality”, now the Election Commission has issued a notice. The spending limit for candidates is Rs 10 lakhs. DMK’s P N P Inbasekharan claims he has only spent Rs 81,308 till March 19. The EC which is acting like Big Brother says he spent at least Rs 7.27 lakh. The AIADMK candidate R Anbazhagan claims he spent Rs 1.26 lakh but the EC says he spent Rs 6.22 lakhs more than the figure he has given. Then there is PMK’s Tamizhkumaran whose claim is Rs 1.08 lakhs, which the EC says is short on the truth by at least Rs 4.15 lakh. So much for the CM saying that “all parties spend money within the quantum of expenditure fixed by EC.” His one-day trip alone on March 24 to Pennagaram must have cost the DMK’s candidate half of what he is allowed by the EC!

Gupta reminds candidates that under the Representation of People’s Act, the EC is empowered to disqualify candidates if the expenditure filed by them was not correct. But in the case of Pennagaram that will be in the realm of academic discussion, because, as I said before, whoever wins (my money is on the DMK candidate), he will be an MLA for less than a year. Even if the EC finds grounds to disqualify him, it will not matter.