Chennai, March 28 (IANS): Senior leader of the DMK and former Union Cabinet Minister, TR Baalu, is engaged in a three-cornered fight at Sriperumbudur for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Senior leader TR Baalu, who is hugely popular at the grassroots, is facing a relatively easy battle in his turf.

In the 2019 general elections, TR Baalu won the seat by a margin of 507,955 votes. He polled 793,281 votes while his nearest opponent, A Vaithilingam of PMK (which was part of the NDA with BJP and AIADMK in 2019) received 285,326 votes.

In this general election TR Baalu is facing G Premkumar of the AIADMK and VN Venugopal of the Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) which is a constituent of the NDA.

While the AIADMK was a constituent of the NDA in the last Lok Sabha elections, in 2024 it is fighting outside the alliance and the NDA has put up its own candidate.

Moreover, the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) of Tamil superstar Kamal Haasan had garnered 135,525 votes in 2019. The party is now aligned with the DMK and all these factors give TR Baalu a clear advantage in the elections.

However, it has to be seen whether the AIADMK will fetch votes from the Muslim community after snapping ties with the BJP.

CS Ravichandran, Director, Socio Economic Development Foundation, a think tank based out of Madurai and election analyst told IANS, “TR Baalu is at a relatively easy position. Arithmetically Baalu is at a great advantage. However in politics, more than arithmetics, chemistry works and it has to be seen how the main opponent of the AIADMK, Premkumar is putting up his act.

“At present it’s clearly Baalu who is winning, but more than 23 days remain to the polls and in politics this is a long time.”

The DMK has also another advantage in Sriperumbudur as many new industries have come up in the constituency due to the policies of the Chief Minister Stalin government, thus increasing employment opportunities leading to more people drifting towards the DMK.