In the RK Nagar by-poll TTV Dinakaran has won by a huge margin. The assembly seat rendered vacant following the death of Jayalalitha went to polls on 21st December. It was a three pronged contest with the ruling AIAIDMK, DMK and Dinakaran as an independent candidate vying for the seat. With an anti-incumbency wave against the Edappadi Palanisamy government and Dinakaran taking away a portion of AIADMK’s vote share, pre-poll analyses predicted an easy win for the opposition DMK. But on the result day Dinakaran, who was expected to come second or third, stole the thunder.
As Sasikala’s nephew Dinakaran was a prominent functionary in the AIADMK. He won the Periyakulam Lok Sabha seat contesting on a AIADMK ticket in 1999 and also served as a Rajya Sabha member. He was expelled from AIADMK by Jayalalitha for interfering in party and government functioning and re-inducted after five years. Before she went to jail in the DA case Sasikala appointed Dinakaran as Deputy General Secretary of AIADMK. In the developments following the party split in two and Dinakaran was sidelined.
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Dinakaran has projected himself as a cool-headed leader which was evident from his reactions to hurdles that came his way. Whether it is the FERA case, bribing the election commission case or the massive IT raids he remained unnerved. It seems that he, to some extent, has the charisma of late MGR, the eloquence and wit of Karunanithi and the steely will of Jayalalitha.
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By winning the assembly seat of Jayalalitha Dinakaran may claim that he is the true successor of the late leader. The ruling AIADMK has lost despite having the ‘two leaves’ symbol will mean that this government has fallen out of people’s favour. Dinakaran who already has some rebel MLAs in his kitty may try to topple the government or move towards a patch-up with the AIADMK and take the reins back in his hand. Opposition DMK has to do a lot of soul-searching as why it couldn’t convert the ant-incumbency into votes to DMK when aninexperienced Dinakaran could do that.
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There are allegations of Dinakaran bribing RK Nagar voters heavily and the Jayalalitha hospital video released on the eve of the by-poll tilted the scales in favour of him. But for many it is a puzzle how he managed to wrest this assembly seat from experienced campaigners like AIADMK and DMK. Political analysts say that Dinakaran will be a force to reckon with and the RK Nagar win seems to be the beginning of a big political innings.
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