FIREBRAND ANNAMALAI'S DUEL IN COIMBATORE IS TN HEAD-TURNER

As the summer peaks, the battlefield in Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency sparkles in an unfamiliar glow.

- S MANNAR MANNAN

There are two reasons. For one, BJP's Tamil Nadu state president, K Annamalai, an IPS officer turned-politician, has entered the poll fray.

Second, the DMK took over the constituency from CPM after a gap of a decade and fielded a soft-spoken Ganapathy P Rajkumar, former Mayor of Coimbatore Corporation, with the sole aim of trouncing the BJP with all its might.

The fact that in 2019, CPM's P R Natarajan romped home with over 1.79 lakh votes may portray the constituency as a hopeless trek for any debutant. But in the 2021 assembly elections, it changed colour from tip to toe in favour of AIADMK in the five segments under this LS constituency. Even the victory of the

BJP's Vanathi Srinivasan from Coimbatore South the sixth Assembly seat-after a three-cornered contest in which she handed actor-turned-neta Kamal Haasan a drubbing, could be attributed to the alliance with the AIADMK.