Historically significant and spiritually renowned as ‘Thirumudhukundram (sacred ancient hill)’, Vridhachalam gained political fame in 2006 when the late DMDK founder Vijayakant made his successful electoral debut from the constituency.Since then, DMDK has held a deep emotional connect to the segment. That was why Vijayakant’s wife and party general secretary Premallatha Vijayakant contested the 2021 assembly polls from Vridhachalam in alliance with AMMK. Though she finished a distant third, polling 25,000-odd votes, she is back as a candidate, this time contesting under the stronger DMK-led alliance, making Vridhachalam one of the most-watched constituencies. The caste factor is expected to play a major role in the segment as it has a considerable population of vanniyars and dalits. There are sizeable numbers of udayars, Christians and Muslims too. To counter Premallatha, AIADMK has allotted the segment to PMK who has fielded P Tamizharasi, its state women’s wing secretary. Tamizharasi, apart from promising all the demands of the people, urged them to elect a resident of the constituency and not an outsider. “We have promised to fulfil all demands. We requested the voters to elect a resident of the constituency who will stay here and serve them,” said A Babu, Tamizharasi’s son, who is spearheading the campaign.While PMK is banking on vanniyar votes, Premallatha hopes the combined strength of DMDK and DMK would help her. In 2021, DMK had allotted the seat to Congress, whose candidate R Radhakrishnan bagged 77,024 votes securing victory with a thin margin of 800-odd votes. “Now that we are part of the DMK front, victory is easy,” said a DMDK functionary, adding that the split in PMK would also help them. DMDK has won the constituency twice – in 2006 and 2011. This time, the entry of Vijay’s TVK and Velmurugan’s Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi have added layers of uncertainty. While Vijay may chip away a section of youth votes, Velmurugan’s party is likely to make a dent in PMK and DMK votebanks. Last time Velmurugan was with DMK alliance, but has parted ways this time and has fielded a candidate. Voters here have listed several critical infrastructure and welfare needs, but the successive govts have failed to fulfil the demands – setting up an agricultural engineering college, desilting the Manimuktha river to improve the groundwater table, establishing a suburban bus stand, upgrading Vridhachalam govt hospital into a medical college hospital, establishing a govt college for women and redirecting surplus water from NLCIL mines to lakes in the region. Premallatha promised voters she would transform the segment into a model constituency. Except for a few industries, including a ceramic product manufacturing cluster, the constituency is largely agrarian and more jobs top the demand of people here. Apart from generating more jobs, she also promised that she would carve out Vridhachalam from Cuddalore and declare it a separate district — one of the demands by voters. However, PMK is mounting a counter attack, accusing DMK of failing to fulfill these promises in the past five years, making it a tough battle.
