The Assembly seat that broke the back of the PMK in Dharmapuri

If there was one Assembly segment that dashed to the ground the PMK’s and, by extension, the BJP’s bid for that coveted one seat in the State, it was Harur, the reserved seat in the Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency. It was a repeat of the 2019 election, when even the combined might of the AIADMK and the PMK could not save the day for its candidate, Anbumani Ramadoss, who lost by 70,000 votes to S. Senthilkumar of the DMK. His loss was sealed by Harur, where the difference was about 40,000 votes.

This time, A. Mani of the DMK polled 4,29,301 votes, winning the seat by a slim margin when compared with the 2019 election. Sowmiya Anbumani of the PMK polled 4,08,445 votes and came a close second, putting up a tough fight. R. Asokan of the AIADMK polled 2,91,590 votes.

On Tuesday, in a seemingly nail-biting contest, except that it was not, Ms. Sowmiya Anbumani’s impressive performance was cut short by the Harur Assembly constituency, where Mr. Mani polled 40,000 votes more, crossing the victory line by 21,300 votes.

These numbers were decisive for the DMK, given that of the six Assembly segments of the Dharmapuri Lok Sabha constituency, Paapireddipatti, Pennagaram, and Dharmapuri unfailingly returned an average lead of over 10,000 votes to the PMK. Harur saved the day for the DMK, alongside the slim margins in Mettur and Palacode. These lead margins are roughly the same as in the last elections.

In a constituency where 60%-70% of the electorate are Vanniyars, the PMK’s arithmetic worked. However, Harur, a reserved segment with a predominantly Scheduled Caste population, Vellala Gounders, and other backward castes and minorities, in that order, who do not identify themselves with the PMK’s exclusionary appeal, continues to cut short the ambitions of the PMK in Dharmapuri.

For instance, in 2019, when the election to the Lok Sabha constituency and a byelection to Harur were held simultaneously, the AIADMK-PMK partnership saw Harur electing an AIADMK MLA, but dumping Dr. Anbumani.

In a single caste-dominated district, where the pitch of one major contender is solely caste identity politics, the three-way contest splits the votes of the other groups. Tuesday’s outcome seems to have adhered to that arithmetic by splitting the non-Vanniyar votes between the AIADMK and the DMK. The AIADMK secured a considerable number of votes, reducing the DMK’s winning margin, quite opposite to the three-way contests elsewhere in the State wherein the DMK gained.