Current affairs

Edappadi Palaniswami vs MK Stalin...A look into their journey towards assembly!

By alagu, 15 March, 2021
ADMK, DMK, Tamil Nadu Elections, Tamilnadu

As Tamil Nadu is gearing up for the crucial assembly polls, the state has been disseminated with election fervor, and with the top parties have inked the deal and formed a coalition, the political leaders have been filing their nomination papers to contest in the polls. The state is three weeks ahead of the polls and filing the nomination for the polls had begun on March 12. 

On Monday, several political leaders have filed their nominations at the offices for their respective constituencies. Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and DMK President MK Stalin have filed their nominations for contesting from Edappadi and Kolathur constituencies respectively. The nominations from both the leaders have come days after they unveiled the list of candidates and election manifestos for their respective parties. 

Both the leaders had filed their nominations amid the rousing welcome from the party members as both of them seek re-election from these constituencies, which have become their strongholds. Let's take a look at the history of previous assembly elections in Edappadi and Kolathur constituencies, 

Edappadi: Chief Minister Palaniswami has got prefixed with Edappadi before his name and it displays how he enjoys the voter base in this constituency, which sits on his native district of Salem. The constituency has become a stronghold for the ADMK party and it has been consecutively electing the ADMK candidate in recent elections. Edappadi constituency has been electing either ADMK's candidate or PMK's candidate since 1977. 

Edappadi Palaniswami has first got elected from the Edappadi constituency in 1989 and again got re-elected in the 1991 polls. The PMK candidates had won in the three consecutive elections in 1996, 2001, and 2006 elections. After bracing up the defeat in three assembly polls, ADMK had fielded Edappadi Palaniswami in Edappadi seat for another time in the 2011 polls. Under the leadership of Jayalalithaa, ADMK had recorded a victory over the majority mark and Edappadi Palaniswami had won the Edappadi constituency by the margin of 34,738 votes and he entered the assembly and became one of the key ministers in Jayalalithaa's cabinet. 

In 2016, Edappdi Palansiwami had again got re-contested from the Edappadi constituency and ended up with a huge victory by defeating PMK's Annadurai by the margin of 42,000 votes. Jayalalithaa had passed away in late 2016 following which Palaniswami had become the Chief Minister for the first time. So far, Edappadi Palaniswami had moved his nominations for six times to contest in the assembly polls and he had won four times - 1989, 1991, 2011, and 2016. 

As he is going to face the first legislative election as the Chief Minister, Edappadi Palaniswami had on Monday filed his nomination for the seventh time from the Edappadi constituency to contest in the assembly polls. As the constituency has a history of electing ADMK or PMK's candidate since 1977, the Chief Minister strongly hopes that he will win again for the third consecutive time as the PMK has formed an alliance with ADMK through in the upcoming polls which he expects that the PMK's voter base won't pull him down. On the other hand, DMK has fielded Salem district leader Sampath Kumar as its candidate for Edappadi to take on the Chief Minister. 

Kolathur: DMK President MK Stalin is senior to Edappadi Palaniswami in terms of contesting in the polls as Stalin has contested in eight assembly elections so far and he has built Kolathur as his stronghold through winning the last two elections. In his political career, Stalin had contested only in Chennai like how Edappadi Palaniswami in Edappadi. Stalin is approaching his first legislative election as the DMK President and an arduous task of proving him as the successor for late DMK patriarch Karunanidhi. 

Till 2006, Stalin had contested from the Thousand Lights constituency in Chennai and he contested from this constituency six times - 1984, 1989, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006. Of these six polls, Stalin had won four times from Thousand Lights except in 1984 and 1991. In the 2011 polls, he contested from Kolathur and won the constituency by defeating ADMK's Saidai Duraisamy by the margin of 2,734 votes.

In 2016, he again contested from Kolathur for the second time, and this time, he had a resounding victory from the constituency after he defeated ADMK's JCD Prabhakar by the margin of nearly 40,000 votes and he became the Leader of Opposition in the current assembly. As the 2021 polls are three weeks away, Stalin had on Monday filed his nomination papers to contest from Kolathur for the third time and like his rival Edappadi Palaniswami, Stalin is also hoping to taste the third consecutive victory from Kolathur and the DMK members believe that Kolathur is going to produce the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. 

The upcoming assembly polls in Tamil Nadu have keenly been watched by the nation as the top parties have been led by the leaders in the absence of political giants Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. Along with Edappadi Palaniswami and MK Stalin, some of the prominent leaders like Kamal Haasan (Coimbatore South), Seeman (Thiruvottiyur), Dhinakaran (Kovilpatti), and BJP's Vanathi Srinivasan (Coimbatore South) had filed their nominations on Monday. Tamil Nadu will go to the single-phase poll on April 6. Let's take a look at the election schedule in Tamil Nadu. 

  • Single-phase election for all the 234 constituencies
  • Issue of Notification - March 12th, 2021.
  • Last date of nomination - March 19th, 2021.
  • Last date of scrutiny - March 20th, 2021.
  • Last date for withdrawing nomination - March 22nd, 2021
  • Date of Election - April 6th, 2021. 
  • Date of counting - May 2nd, 2021, during which the winner will be declared.
 

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