Helicopter in, helicopter out: Vijay's 40-km Dharapuram roadshow closes a campaign built on a defection

Dharapuram: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay flew from Chennai to Coimbatore on Sunday morning, boarded a helicopter to a specially prepared helipad at Maruthi Nagar, and rode a campaign van through a 40-kilometre roadshow from Dharapuram to Mulanur and back — all in the final hours before campaigning for Tuesday's Assembly bypoll fell silent at 6 p.m. According to IANS, the Chief Minister arrived at the Maruthi Nagar helipad around 11 a.m., travelled two kilometres to the Udumalai roundabout junction, and began the roadshow through the Periyar statue junction, the Five Roads junction and Meenakshipuram, before proceeding through Kulathupalayam, Karaiyur and Mulanur, covering the Vanjiamman temple area. He returned along the same route to Maruthi Nagar, took the helicopter back to Coimbatore, and flew on to Chennai. Security was strengthened along the entire route ahead of his visit. It was his second campaign visit to the constituency within a week. Twenty-two candidates are in the fray in Dharapuram, a reserved constituency in Tiruppur district witnessing a five-cornered contest between the TVK, the DMK, the AIADMK, Naam Tamilar Katchi and the Communist Party. Meanwhile, TVK minister Sengottaiyan declared that the Dharapuram bypoll would be a 'turning point' in Tamil Nadu politics, predicting a 'historic victory' for the TVK driven by public enthusiasm for the Chief Minister — and claiming the scale of the expected win would deter the DMK and AIADMK from contesting the next bypoll. He offered no evidence for the claim. What the minister did not mention is why Dharapuram is voting at all. The bypoll was necessitated after AIADMK MLA P. Sathyabama resigned from the Assembly and joined the TVK; the ruling party has renominated her on its whistle symbol. The Madras High Court declined to stay the bypolls, but the bench orally observed that the situation should not become a 'mockery of democracy', questioning whether MLAs who resign after an election should be allowed to contest again. So the full machinery of the state — the Chief Minister's day, a strengthened security grid, a helicopter shuttle — has been deployed to win a by-election that exists only because the ruling party engineered a defection. The campaign is now silent. On Tuesday, Dharapuram's voters will answer the one question no roadshow can settle: whether a mandate manufactured by resignation can be laundered by spectacle. Polling is on October 6; counting on October 9.