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The Congress has an opening in the Nilgiris

N Sathiya Moorthy in the Nilgiris

"If there is one constituency in Tamil Nadu where the Congress may have a chance to win the current Lok Sabah elections, it's here in the Nilgiris. And they cannot win without our support."

That was a candidate of the All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on the chances of former Union Minister R Prabhu who had bagged over a 100,000 votes in his home constituency, which he held for three terms, before losing it in the anti-Jayalalitha wave of 1996.

Last year, the Congress had no real ally in Tamil Nadu, but now it has teamed up with the AIADMK, and the two communist parties. Fortunately, AIADMK chief Jayalalitha favours Prabhu too and that ensures her party members work hard for him in the Nilgiris.

Prabhu had launched his campaign long before the party named him as the candidate, having foreseen the possibility of a Congress alliance with the AIADMK. But he expected he would be re-nominated whether the party fought alone or teamed up with the Tamil Maanila Congress, as was believed to be a possibility at one time.

But if Prabhu started early, Master Madan, member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the dissolved Parliament, too knew he would be re-nominated and had begun work even earlier.

If anybody was caught napping, it was the cadres of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the AIADMK, who were to back these candidates. But that was because the seat-sharing talks took their times to get over.

Both sides are expending considerable energy in getting village elders to come over to temples and vow to vote for them. "Once their elders have made that vow, you can be sure of the community's vote, at least in that particular village," says a DMK worker with years of experience.

The Nilgiris constituency is spread over a great deal of hilly terrain, with three assembly segments on the high slopes of the Nilgiris revenue district, and three others in the plains of the neighbouring Coimbatore district.

A BJP worker spoke highly of the DMK's loyalty to its his party. The DMK secretaries of the two districts were offering a gold ring and a gold chain to the lower-level functionary whose area polled the most votes for the BJP nominee.

There is a third candidate in the fray, Chinnaraj of the Dalit-backed Puthiya Thamizhagam, a partner in the Tamil Maanila Congress-led Third Front.

"The PT leadership is counting on the Dalit estate labour, whose issue they had taken up in a big way in the southern Tirunelveli district. In fact, the 'Mancholai estate issue', as it is called, is aimed at bringing the Dalit farm and estate labour from Tirunelveli to the Coimbatore-Pollachi belt under the PT's influence.

But voters in the Nilgiris haven't heard of Chinnaraj, and even TMC workers are not sure who is their PT candidate. "That's a handicap we could have done without," says the TMC worker. "Instead, we could have ourselves contested the seat, as we did earlier."

TMC's S R Balasubramanian won the 1996 Lok Sabha polls, and became a Union minister, before losing to Master Madan last year. For Madan, it was his first successful outing in three tries. Prabhu had won the constituency thrice since 1984 but has lost it thrice since.

His assertion that he would get Rs 650 million allotted to the sick Hindustan Photo Films unit when he was MP is still remembered by the labour classes. They also remember that his family-run Malco (Madras Aluminium Company) also became sick.

Since Balasubramaniam and Madan have done nothing to alleviate the problems of HPF, a symbol of the Nilgiris' special industrial status, these issues could dominate the campaign. People here are not sure if the Congress and Sonia Gandhi will form the government, since only then do they expect Prabhu to be able to really do anything for this constituency.

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