What made DMK lose the battle?

A closer study would show a combination of factors that reduced Stalin’s DMK to a distant third in the by-poll it fought with three national parties (two Left and Congress) and a handful of regional partners.

First, the party’s choice of candidate, Marudhu Ganesh, was a novice compared to a star candidate TTV (independent) and veteran Madhusudhanan (AIADMK). Absence of party leaders in the campaign trail (Stalin campaigned for two-and-a-half days and Kanimozhi remained away from it) and failure to negate cash flow reportedly caused by the two other main rivals in the fray wreaked havoc for DMK in the subaltern constituency vacated by former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

When field surveys and ‘other’ considerations offered by rivals predicted an edge to TTV and Madhusudhanan, an adamant Stalin refused to ‘invest’ more on the campaign, claimed sources.

“Thalapathi (Stalin) refused to spend. He thought that the campaign was sufficient to take on an unpopular and broken AIADMK. It has ‘cost’ us dearly,” said a DMK functionary close to Stalin.

Sekar Babu, another party district secretary in Chennai who is familiar with the constituency, had repeatedly appealed to campaign managers to revise their strategy but they were vetoed, the functionary added. He accused TTV of adopting a new campaign formula, wherein 75,000 voters were ‘met’ daily for 20 days till the polling day by his campaign managers.

“The day the nominations were finalised, we knew that we were pitting debutant Marudhu against TTV and Madhusudhanan. So, the leaders should have spent ‘more’ time and resource from then, but they did not,” said a senior leader. “There is no point in blaming the winners for splurging. We know how by-elections are ‘managed’ in the state,” he added.

“Falling from 33.14% to 13.9% after Jayalalithaa’s death and losing to an independent TTV cannot be excused,” the senior leader said. “Whatever contributed to his victory, there is no denying that TTV has eaten in to our vote bank substantially,” said a senior DMK requesting anonymity.