States »SoutPosted at: Apr 6 2021 11:18AM TN Assembly polls : A contest too close to call
By V.Mariappan
Chennai, Apr 6 (UNI) As Tamil Nadu started voting today
to elect the members of its 16th Assembly, the political
stake-holders and observers alike seem to have a hunch
that this election, unlike the 2016 exercise, may throw up
head-scratchers and even jaw-droppers.
Till a week ago, most of the opinion polls had predicted
Opposition DMK’s comeback after a decade-old hiatus.
The Times Now C-voter opinion poll conducted between
March 17 and 22 among 8,709 participants has enthused
and energized the MK Stalin-led DMK to the point of being
sort of complacent with its prediction that the SPA (Secular
Progressive Alliance) comprising the DMK, the Congress
and others will sweep stakes, recording 46 percentage of
votes with a swing of 6.6 per cent from its 2016 score of
39.4 per cent.
The SPA will win 177 seats, adding 79 seats more to
its 2016 tally of 98, according to the survey which has
also predicted that the NDA (AIADMK, BJP and others)
will nosedive from its 2016 record of 136 seats (43.7
percentage) to 49 (34.6 percentage), leaving the
remaining seats to lesser mortals.
According to sources, DMK’s strategist Prashant Kishore’s
I-PAC (Indian Political Action Committee), in a survey
conducted at the time of the air being thick with lots
of buzz over the Tamil superstar Rajinikanth’s political
plunge, was said to have foretold that the DMK would have
an edge in the battle for ballots and win 152 seats.
But the rider, the survey said in the same breath, was
that Rajini should opt out of the race.
On the other end of the spectrum there are survey results
that jack up the ruling AIADMK’s spirits. For instance, the
survey conducted by Zion Research among 58,500 voters
across Tamil Nadu has rattled the hopeful DMK with its
prophecy that the AIADMK will win 125 seats (45 percentage
of votes) and the DMK 110 seats (40 per cent).
The opinion poll has also brought to light the silent and
latent popularity that Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami
has been enjoying at the grassroots-level with his government’s
Pongal gift of Rs.2,500 to the people, efficient handling of the
Corona situation, with his simplicity and accessibility unlike
party supremo late J Jayalalithaa.
The CM’s propaganda slogans that kept flashing across all
offline and online ads such as ‘naanumoru vivasaayithaan’
(I am also a farmer) and ‘Vetri Nadai Podum Tamilagam’
(Tamil Nadu on triumphant march) have played to the gallery
more poignantly rather than the DMK’s slogan ‘Stalinthaan
Vararu Vidiyal Tharaporaaru’ (Stalin comes calling, will
give dawn), said the results of the survey published in
a Tamil weekly.
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