At heart of TN push is town with which BJP has a past: Coimbatore

FOR HIS first political rally in Tamil Nadu after becoming the Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi chose Coimbatore. For his first political engagement in the state after the Lok Sabha election schedule was announced, Modi again chose Coimbatore. When he held his road show in the town on Monday, it was the grandest such by the party in Tamil Nadu.

There is a reason Coimbatore occupies such a central space in the BJP’S Tamil Nadu push. On February 14, 1998, as then senior BJP leader L K Advani — the architect of the Rath Yatra, which led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid — was visiting the town, 12 bombs went off across 11 sites, leaving 58 dead and over 200 injured. Al-umma, a radical Islamic organisation based in Tamil Nadu, was blamed for the attacks.

Since then, the BJP has invoked the Coimbatore blasts to make a space for itself among the Hindu voters in Tamil Nadu, a state where regional, sub-national sentiments hold a bigger sway. Modi’s roadshow Monday ended at one of the sites of the blasts, where the PM stopped to pay homage to the victims.

Coimbatore, with its large textile industry, is also home to many migrants from the North, giving the BJP a ripe base. The party won the next two elections held after the blasts from here, in 1998 and 1999. Other parties too are known to actively employ Hindispeaking campaigners and announcers in the constituency.

Now, the buzz in Tamil Nadu is that the BJP is planning to take its Coimbatore push one step further by fielding from here its firebrand state chief K Annamalai (who, reportedly, is not too keen to contest).

This, in turn, has made the Opposition rework its plans, with the DMK deciding to contest the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat after a gap of 10 years, during which time its Left allies fought from the constituency. On Wednesday, the DMK — which last won the seat in 1996 — announced former AIADMK leader and Coimbatore Mayor Ganapathi Rajkumar as its candidate for the seat.

In the absence of the DMK, Coimbatore is seen as more of an AIADMK stronghold, with the BJP (an ally of the AIADMK till recently) continuing to command support. AIADMK chief E Palaniswami, who belongs to Salem district, also has significant influence here.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the AIADMK had won Coimbatore with a notable margin. While in 2019, the Left had wrested it by a margin of 1.7 lakh votes, with the BJP coming second, the AIADMK had swung back in 2021. In that year's Assembly elections, the AIADMK and allies had secured all the segments under the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat, even as the DMK had returned to power with a huge majority. The DMK, this time, has the support of Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam, which came third in 2019 in Coimbatore, getting 1.44 lakh votes.

A senior DMK leader said they expect a sweep in the Lok Sabha polls again, but that Coimbatore may pose a challenge. “They are making a significant push, evident from Modi's roadshow,” the leader said.