Srirangam by-poll: DMK's fight for survival has begun

When S Valarmathi, a relatively little known AIADMK candidate, breezed through the Srirangam by-poll today. It was yet another reaffirmation of the redoubtable power of the J Jayalalithaa cult, no matter if she is now left twitching the power reins from her Chennai home. The AIADMK candidate polled a stupendous 95,000 votes more than the DMK man Anand who came second. The rest, expectably, forfeited their deposits.

Srirangam had been Jaya's personal poll turf, from where she had won on a margin of a little more than 41,000 votes against the same DMK candidate in the 2011 Assembly elections. Ironically, Jayalalithaa's fall from de jure power had more than doubled the margin for her party there.

"Look at the results. Amma did not even campaign but only wrote a letter asking voters to consider that she herself was contesting. Amma is invincible and she will remain so," says A Vijayan, an AIADMK fuctionary. This is the sixth by-poll victory for AIADMK since it came to power in 2011.

The beleaguered DMK wants to put it all down to muscle and money power that it alleged the AIADMK had used in plenty. DMK chief M Karunanidhi had been lamenting about money flowing like water in Srirangam. A survey conducted by a group of students from Loyola college just before the elections had said that about 86 per cent of voters in Sri Rangam who responded admitted to have no qualms about accepting money for votes.

The results mean, however, the DMK has its task cut out. With Assembly elections just a year away, the party has to pull its act together. "The party failed to get any traction after Jayalalithaa's conviction, or even in the run up to the Sri Rangam by-poll. The going may get tougher for the DMK if it fails to do something about this on a war footing," says a senior political analyst based in Chennai. The party might have to first look inwards at a plethora of problems plaguing it - from the cascading effects of the 2G case and the internal power manipulations. "Without putting our own house in order, how can we look any farther?" said a DMK functionary.

Sri Rangam by-poll was perhaps the last warning for the DMK, and the siren had better wake up the party poised between an existential crisis and political irrelevance.