Congress banking on sitting AIADMK MLA's failure in Namakkal constituency

Namakkal constituency, known mainly for its poultry and truck industries, is also famous for its Anjaneyar temple. The western Tamil Nadu district is the highest contributor of state's revenue through eggs which are sent to different parts of the country including the North Indian states. This has earned Namakkal the name of 'poultry town'.
The constituency contains a large number of poultry farms.The town is also known for its famous Rock Fort which covers an area of one and a half acres.
"Though the district produces a major part of eggs, we don't have a cold storage here to preserve them," said Dr PV Senthil, general secretary of Livestock and Agri Farmers Trade Association (LIFT) and an egg exporter. He further said that the poultry farmers had long been appealling for an egg export zone in the constituency.
Senthil said Namakkal exported almost 95% of the eggs in the country and the region had the potential to capture a sizeable share of the global egg market because cost of production was lower here when compared to other exporting countries.
He further said that the establishment of an export zone would further protect and encourage more efficient usage of resources in the region and promote the trade further.
Namakkal is also known for housing several lorry building industries. More than 150 truck body building workshops and with a number of subsidiary industries of auto body works have been operating since 1960 in this constituency.
K Balasubramaniam, a truck operator said neither the ruling party nor any other political parties had done anything for the betterment of the industry which employed a sizeable number of the population.
The sitting MLA of this constituency, K P P Baskar, will have to work hard to prove his mettle and retain the seat as he faces stiff competition from the opposition parties including Congress and TMC.
DMK has allotted this constituency to Congress following which TNCC nominated R Chezhian as its candidate, while the TMC fielded N Elango as its candidate. The votes of the predominant kongu velalar gounder caste in the constituency are likely to split as all the major candidates come from that particular caste.
Kongu velalar gounder and nattu gounders accounted for nearly 60% of the total population in the constituency and those belonging to the scheduled caste are about 20% of the population of the district. The rest of the demography is a mix of mudaliars, chettiyars, brahmins, Muslims and Christians.
According to political critics, there will be a tough fight between AIADMK and Congress as the sitting MLA KPP Baskar failed to deliver on his promises and people have been unhappy with his performance.
"The MLA did not meet the voters and most of the times he had spent his time with the industries minister P Thangamani. He paid little attention to the constituency," said K Ilayaraja, a political analyst.
Congress candidate R Chezhian said that it would be a cakewalk to him and he was definite of tasting victory.
"The ruling party candidate failed to fulfil his promises and he did not take any such step to bring cold storage, which is one of the major demands of the people here," he said. He expressed confidence that with the support of DMK and their other alliances, victory would not remain elusive to him.