Tamil nationalist Seeman, Vijay factor put the squeeze on Congress in Chettiar heartland

Karaikudi in southern Tamil Nadu is the heartland of Chettiars, the mercantile caste who have historically been traders and financiers. It is also the hometown of senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, and is less a seat than a test case. It compresses into one landscape the anxieties and shifts shaping the April 23 Assembly polls: a Congress incumbent under pressure, a high-voltage challenger in NTK’s Seeman, a new entrant in Vijay’s TVK, and a fourth player in T T V Dhinakaran’s AMMK backed by the NDA-AIADMK alliance. The result is a four-cornered contest where no single force appears dominant and where even marginal shifts in vote share could reorder the outcome.

For the DMK-Congress alliance, the constituency has drawn particular attention. The party leadership has asked district units to step up campaign efforts, sensing both the symbolic and arithmetic importance of holding ground here. Karaikudi was also among the few places Vijay chose to visit, campaigning for TVK candidate Dr T K Prabhu, a well-known dentist. At the same time, Seeman’s candidacy — rooted in his home district and backed by a sharply articulated campaign with emotion, anger and nostalgia — has turned the seat into one of the most closely watched battles.

Against this backdrop, Karti Chidambaram’s campaign blends performance with argument. His speech circles around a central idea: that politics, unlike cinema or social media, demands recognition of those who work within it. The line about reels and votes is crafted to travel and be memetic. But beneath it lies a more pointed critique of new entrants who, as he frames it, seek public support without sustained engagement.

The Sivaganga MP is direct in his assessment of Vijay. “I think they’re going to split everybody’s vote,” he says. “You see, Vijay is definitely popular. He’s definitely going to get a fair number of votes, but it all depends on the candidates. See, what happens is there is a natural enthusiasm, which has come in because of a popular movie star. But when you go constituency by constituency, if they do not have a credible candidate who’s able to pull through the campaign, that is not going to work.”

The Congress MP says Vijay is questioning the established political parties, but not with the right question. “The right question must be with an alternative societal or governance model, but they don’t have it. A good public figure must still engage with the public at large. He has not had one known conversation with anybody.”

In Karaikudi, these arguments are not abstract. They reflect on the ground, where Seeman’s campaign has injected energy and uncertainty. The steady rise in the NTK’s vote share — from 1.06% in 2016 to 6.89% in 2021 overall in the state — has made his candidacy more than symbolic. If he crosses a threshold — party workers speak of 30% as a decisive mark — it could translate into his first electoral victory. Seeman is one of Tamil Nadu’s most distinctive political figures. He is known for his fiery speeches and his politics blends Tamil nationalism with sharp anti-establishment rhetoric. This has helped Seeman build a loyal, limited base among younger voters. This perhaps may be what will be the first in the line of fire as Vijay tries to move into a crowded political field and squeeze out other parties.

For the Congress, it is a familiar burden of incumbency without the cushion of dominance. Incumbent MLA S Mangudi’s previous victory, secured with just over a third of the vote, now appears vulnerable in a fragmented field. Anti-incumbency, the pull of Tamil nationalist rhetoric, and the curiosity surrounding the entry of the TVK and the AMMK have combined to create a volatile mix.

In Karaikudi, every signal is being read closely and the contest will come down to the ability of the parties to convert noise into numbers.