During 2006 assembly elections in Tamilnadu a new party formed by IIT ians “Lok Paritran(LP)” contested in few seats . Lot of young people including myself were attracted to the idea of educated folks coming to the politics. We went for the campaigning in Mylapore, from where one of the co-founder of the party Santhanagopalan contested .
The students who were supporting the party went for door to door campaign every day whereas working folks like me participated in the weekend rallies and campaigns. We covered almost every street of the constituency in a month. Our canvassing mainly consisted of statements like “Won’t you vote if your brother is contesting this election”,”A highly educated man from your area is contesting this elections leaving his lucrative job don’t you want to see him as your MLA”,”Vote for Axe(Symbol of LP) to curb the corruption” hope you get the idea. We were selling boy next door image to get the votes.
During that election, popular faces from tamil cinema S.Ve.Shekher(AIADMK) and Napoleon(DMK) contested in the Mylapore constituency. Chandralekha IAS of Janata party was also a known face, apart from all the popular faces there was DMDK party formed by Tamil actor Vijayakanth which was contesting for the first time as the alternative to DMK and AIADMK. Considering all these factors nobody cared about a new party like Lok Partitran but we had put our sincerest effort to reach the people and sell the image which we believed.
Thanks to the FM radios and the new IT culture that was developing that time enough buzz was created for Lok Paritran.
DMK in alliance with INC and PMK won 148 out of 234 seats in Tamilnadu.
In Mylapore, DMK candidate lost to AIADMK by mere 1600 votes, whereas Lok Partitran came 3rd and got 9400 votes. DMDK came 3rd in almost all the constituencies in TN but in Mylapore they came next to LP.Though LP fared better in Mylapore they couldn’t pull any voters in other constituencies because we didn’t had enough resources to campaign in other places. Moreover they had chosen to contest against high profile politicians like Karunanidhi, Stalin so the whole exercise in other places was a big flop.
AAP in my opinion is similar to LP but they’ve created more buzz and is more visible than LP. AAP have posed themselves as an alternative to INC and BJP but mostly they are going to do what LP did, splitting the votes. Inspite of all the popular faces in Mylapore, LP gained more votes mainly because people were expecting an alternative similar to what AAP is projecting. AAP may sound like an alternative to educated people who are not aware of the threat it poses. These educate youths will influence others in the family to vote for AAP. It would’ve been a cakewalk for BJP with the antiincumbency factor and an incompetent CM like Shiela Dixit pushing the voters to BJP but AAP became a big hinderance for BJP and there is every chance that it will eat the votes of BJP. Voters who think Modi is the only alternative in Lok Sabha elections may feel that AAP can be a better alternative in the state elections. Considering the fact that BJP is going to contest election without CM candidate the vote swing will be more towards AAP. To win the voters AAP may go with only one slogan, “Congress and BJP both are bad so please vote for us , give us a chance to give good governance” this will really help them to get the neutrals, fence sitters and even the new voters.
BJP has to convince the voters that Congress is worst, and a vote to AAP is an indirect vote to congress.
After the 2006 elections people started losing interest in Lok Paritran, lot of in fights in the party lead to a split. AAP may go down the same road if they don’t win any seat but the damage is going to be on BJP in the coming elections. BJP cannot wish away the threat of AAP by ignoring them.
Candidates
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Valid Votes in AC
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Name
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Party
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Number
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Percentage
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SHEKHER, S.VE.
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All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
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62794
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42.62
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NAPOLEON, D.
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Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
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61127
|
41.49
|
SANTHANAGOPALAN
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Lok Paritran
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9436
|
6.40
|
RAJAN, V.N.
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Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam
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7441
|
5.05
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CHANDRALEKHA, V.S.
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Janata Party
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2898
|
1.97
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