Tamil Nadu assembly election results: It was not just Vijay wave that led to M K Stalin’s defeat in Kolathur

CHENNAI: As the election campaign drew to a close, DMK functionaries in Kolathur constituency said they were targeting victory for chief minister M K Stalin by a margin of more than 75,000 votes. Stalin lost to TVK's V S Babu by 8,795 votes. DMK's Kolathur area secretary Nagarajan said the defeat was unexpected. He said all the party workers had campaigned for the chief minister and the govt had implemented projects worth several hundred crores in the constituency. Besides a wave in favour of Vijay, it's clear infighting in DMK at the micro level in Kolathur that undid Stalin. "The area secretaries did not concentrate on the booth level. A senior minister who is in charge of Kolathur constituency created parallel power centres at the grassroots level. Party functionaries were not able to contact CM over their grievances. It created heartburn among the cadres," said a DMK functionary.V S Babu who knew DMK well capitalised on this. He had played a crucial role when Stalin first won Kolathur in 2011 as DMK's North Chennai district secretary and Purasawalkam MLA from 2006 to 2011. He switched to AIADMK a decade ago. Just before this election, he joined TVK.AIADMK's North Chennai district minority wing secretary A Abbas said the overconfidence of DMK party men worked against them in Kolathur. "The problems of Kolathur have remained the same for the past 15 years -be it road issues or sewage mixing with drinking water or stagnation of rainwater. DMK govt did several photo-shoots by launching fancy schemes in the constituency without addressing the basic issues. Stalin lost Kolathur due to the public anger against DMK govt," he said.A large part of Kolathur constituency was once part of Purasawalkam, which DMK won in the face of the sympathy wave for MGR's AIADMK throughout the state in 1984. This time traditional DMK supporters switched allegiance and Stalin lost.