It will be a battle of professionals in Madurai

Madurai Lok Sabha election sees battle between writer, doctor, professor, and assistant professor in a three-way fight.

The Temple City of Madurai will be witnessing a battle of professionals in the Lok Sabha election. A writer, a doctor and a professor are in the arena for a three-way fight. An Assistant Professor is also in the fray.

The incumbent, Su. Venkatesan of the CPI(M) - a DMK ally - and winner of Sahitya Akademi award, is in the battle with AIADMK’s P. Saravanan, a doctor by profession and the BJP’s Raama Sreenivasan, a professor. Naam Tamilar Katchi’s T. Satyadevi, an Assistant Professor, is the only woman candidate.

In the 2019 election, Mr. Venkatesan defeated AIADMK’s V.V.R. Raj Satyen by a margin of 1.39 lakh votes. He will be looking to emulate fellow communist and partyman P. Mohan who won the Lok Sabha election as an incumbent. Mr. Venkatesan believes that he will win the election by an even bigger margin of not less than two lakh votes.

Mr. Mohan won the 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha elections from Madurai. He improved his vote percentage from 43.85% in 1999 to 56.03% in 2004. The winning streak was cut short by DMK’s M.K. Alagiri in 2009 who defeated Mr. Mohan by a margin of 1.40 lakh and in 2014 AIADMK’s R. Gopalakrishnan defeated DMK’s P. Velusamy by a margin of 1.99 lakh votes. Now, the CPI(M), the DMK and the Congress are in the poll alliance.

Madurai district is a stronghold of the two major Dravidian parties when it comes to Assembly election. It reflected in the 2021 elections with the DMK and the AIADMK winning five each of the 10 Assembly segments in the district.

Six of the 10 Assembly segments come under Madurai Lok Sabha Constituency. While six Assembly constituencies - Madurai North, Madurai South, Madurai East, Madurai West, Madurai Central and Melur came under Madurai Lok Sabha constituency, Tirupparankundram and Tirumangalam come under Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency, and Sholavandan and Usilampatti under Theni Lok Sabha constituency.

In the Lok Sabha election, the Congress has won eight times in Madurai constituency.