Right from day one when the election date is declared, politicians are generally anticipating to catapult no-holds barred attack on opposition parties and rival groups across the ideological divide. The cadres are storming their own party offices beating up local leaders, burning effigies of their party colleagues and even laying siege to the residence of the ‘high command and all for making a ‘humble request’ to the party leadership to change the nominee for a particular constituency.
This act of rebellion may take different forms in different parties and the phenomenon is fairly common across major political parties. The political observers attribute the increased intensity of such protests to a couple of factors.
T.K.S. Elangovan, a spokesperson of the DMK has stated that there is no truth in the allegation that the candidates are decided by the top leadership without taking into consideration the aspirations of the foot-soldiers of the party.
Mr. Elangovan attributes the pitched intra-party battle for seats this time to the belief that DMK will romp home victorious. In the last election they have contested in 119 seats and gave away 115 seats. But they did not witness this kind of protests which are seen today. So today if you find people desperate for a seat, it is only because they want to be part of a winning alliance.
