The father-son duo of Ramadoss-Anbumani is playing a delicate balancing act. The senior Ramadoss' eyes are set on vanniyar regrouping, but his son Anbumani is at pains to break the caste barrier and reach out to other backward classes as well.Despite being the first to start the campaign, the PMK has not yet released its list of candidates -a possible indication of the party's existential crisis.
PMK's community strongholds are in the north, west and central regions -Villupuram, Cuddalore, Dhar mapuri, Kancheepuram, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Krishnagiri, Salem, Ariyalur and Perambalur.The PMK is virtually non-existent elsewhere including in southern Tamil Nadu.
During his 30-year political career, Ramadoss has presided over both the consolidation and fragmentation of vanniyars, and in the process the rise and fall of his vanniyar-centric outfit too. Vanniyar consolidation, which started with the road blockades of the '80s under the Vanniyar Sangam banner demanding reservation, led to the formation of the PMK under Ramadoss' leadership in 1989.
The party's support base was so strong that even during the 1991 election following Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, the PMK won one assembly seat at Panruti. The tally improved in 1996 to four. Then Ramadoss started aligning with the DMK and the AIADMK alternately from 1998 to 2011. His social reengineering attempt by regrouping vanniyars and dalits under one banner eroded much of his base. Ramadoss' decision to make Dalit Ezhilmalai and E Ponnuswamy Union ministers did not go down well with his vanniyar supporters. DMDK's emergence in 2005 and Vijayakanth's appeal among the vanniyars added to Ramadoss' miseries. Still, he was not worried as the number of MLAs and MPs kept increasing for the party owing to the alliances.
Eventually , when the Dravidian majors wrote off the PMK following its poor show in 2011, Ramadoss started his reconstruction mission, latching on to every issue that could appeal to vanniyars. Inter-caste marriages and the resultant social unrest gave enough fodder to it over the past five years. That strategy paid off in 2014 when Anbumani won from vanniyar stronghold Dharmapuri.Some say the performance in Dharmapuri cannot be replicated. “Voting pattern has changed over the years. Both AIADMK and DMK will field vanniyar candidates in northern districts and split the community votes,“ felt Gnani Sankaran, a political activist.
Even if it fails to consolidate a majority of vanniyar votes, PMK could emerge with a few seats in a multi-cornered election and play spoilsport to DMK and AIADMK, said political analyst M Kasinathan. “PMK's performance may not match previous levels. But projection of Anbumani as CM candidate and DMDK's slide will help. Owing to VCK's presence in the PWF, DMDK's appeal among vanniyars has taken a beating,“ he said. If no party gets majority , PMK could play a major role.
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