Chennai: Just after sunset, P K Sekarbabu’s black-and-red jeep nosed into St Xavier Street in George Town, loudspeakers blaring “Hat-trick Harbour”, his campaign anthem and a nod to his bid for a third straight win. He waved to the crowd and paused for quick appeals for votes surrounded by a ring of loyal organisers — men who spent decades tending his booth-level network in one of the DMK’s prized urban bastions.When the convoy turned into interior lanes, past small homes and shops, parked two-wheelers and sagging overhead wires, his pitch softened. Elderly women and men called him by name, some cupped his cheeks in thanks for old favours, and others slipped fresh requests into his hands. In the state’s small constituency of a little more than 1.1 lakh voters that intimacy is his trump card. First-time voters pressed him on jobs, others asked what the modernisation of Chennai Port would mean for daily wagers. He said reforms wouldn’t wipe out livelihoods and also pointed to the DMK govt’s welfare measures — free bus travel for women, expanded health insurance, housing upgrades.Sekarbabu, who served two consecutive terms as AIADMK’s RK Nagar MLA starting in 2001, crossed over to DMK in 2011. That year, he stayed on in RK Nagar and lost to AIADMK’s Vetrivel. In the same election, the AIADMK also snatched Harbour — a seat the DMK held every time since 1977. In 2016, he wrested Harbour back by a margin of 4,836 votes. Five years later, he increased the margin to 27,274 and was brought into the council of ministers.Inside DMK, Harbour is shorthand for a safe seat. After sitting out the 1984 election, DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi contested from Harbour in 1989, winning by 31,991 votes and reclaiming the chief minister’s office. In 1991, weeks after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in Sriperumbudur, AIADMK-Congress alliance swept 225 of 234 seats. Karunanidhi survived in Harbour by just 890 votes. He and Parithi Elamvazhuthi from Egmore were the only two DMK legislators in the Assembly. Karunanidhi resigned but DMK still won Harbour in the byelection. Later long time DMK general secretary K Anbazhagan had a string of victories here, including one by a wafer-thin margin of 410 votes in 2006.On Tuesday, at a street-corner meeting, Sekarbabu climbed onto a low metal stage with CPM state secretary P Shanmugam, and cast his run as a bid to “serve people and offer governance”. Soon, traders who clustered around him raised more prosaic worries — traffic chokepoints, fire risks, flooding. He offered the standard reassurance that pending civil works would move after the polls.His opponents are trying to highlight the gap between promise and delivery. Royapuram R Mano of AIADMK, a veteran north Chennai organiser making his first Assembly bid, blames the minister for Harbour’s chronic ailments: choked drains, sewage on the streets, garbage mounds and what he calls entrenched corruption. He’s betting that in a small seat even a modest swing or a local flashpoint can sting.The challenge for new entrants such as TVK’s Sinora P S Ashok, who used to be a prominent Rajinikanth fan club functionary, is that the voter base is so small that there are fewer new votes to tap. As the night wore on and the loudspeakers fell silent, Shahera Begum, watching from a narrow lane, asked: “Can this city’s growth make room for us instead of pushing us out?” MSID:: 130288058 413 |
