Constituency Watch: BJP fancies its chances after Amit Shah’s mega roadshow in Madurai

Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s massive roadshow in Madurai on Friday has boosted the electoral prospects of the BJP candidate from there.

Amit Shah conducted the roadshow in support of Rama Sreenivasan, the party candidate from Madurai, a seat the BJP has never won. But the party leadership thinks that the party has got a major boost after the visit of the Home Minister.

M.P. Saravanan, a local leader of the BJP, told IANS that, “ The Union Home Minister touched a chord with the people of the constituency and this has given a big boost to the fortunes of the party candidate Prof Rama Sreenivasan. Amit Shah attacked both the main Dravidian parties, AIADMK and the DMK, and pitched on the need for electing the BJP candidate.”

He said that his visit has given the BJP’s electioneering a big boost as several voters who were in a dilemma have given a thumbs up to the BJP.

In the Madurai Lok Sabha seat, BJP candidate Rama Sreenivasan is in a three-cornered fight against CPI-M leader and sitting MP, Su Venkatesan and AIADMK leader P. Saravanan.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Su Venkatesan won the seat by a margin of 1,39,995 votes defeating AIADMK leader, V.V.R Raj Satyen. Madurai Lok Sabha constituency consists of Melur, Madurai East, Madurai North, Madurai South, Madurai Central and Madurai West assembly seats.

In the 2021 assembly elections, the Melur assembly seat was represented by AIADMK leader Periyapullam P. Selvan defeating the Congress’ T. Ravichandran by a margin of 35,162 votes. The DMK’s P. Murthy representing the Madurai East assembly seat defeated AIADMK leader R. Gopalakrishnan by 49,604 votes.

Madurai North assembly seat is represented by G. Thalapathi of the DMK who defeated BJP leader P. Saravanan by 22,916 votes.

In the Madurai South assembly seat, M. Boominathan of the DMK defeated S.S. Saravanan of the AIADMK by 6515 votes. Madurai Central assembly seat is represented by Tamil Nadu minister for information technology, Palanivel Thiagarajan who defeated Jothi Muthumarilangam of the AIADMK by a margin of 34,176 votes.

While the DMK represents four assembly seats and AIADMK represents 2 assembly seats in the six assembly seats under the Madurai Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP campaign is focused mainly on the return of the BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre.

Amit Shah while addressing the public mentioned clearly that the NDA under Prime Minister Narendra Modi was winning in more than 400 seats and had appealed to the voters of Madurai to climb on to the bandwagon. He said that the Madurai Lok Sabha constituency will witness development if the people elect the BJP candidate

R. Shakthivel, a political analyst speaking to IANS said, “While arithmetically, BJP doesn’t have a chance, there has been a significant improvement on the ground for the BJP. The possibility of a BJP government under Narendra Modi coming back to power is a major advantage for the BJP at the grassroots level. The roadshow of a senior leader like Amit Shah has indeed helped the BJP candidate and the party has to now capitalize on this advantage.”