Will Karunanidhi hit a home run again?

That M Karunanidhi, president of the DMK, will win this seat to the Tamil Nadu Assembly appears to be a given.

Even his political detractors do not argue that point — after all it is the nonagenarian politician’s native constituency.

Even in 2011, when the DMK was voted out of power following a massive anti-incumbency wave, Thiruvarur expressed solidarity with its own, to give him a massive 50,000-vote lead over his rival, AIADMK candidate M Rajendran. Though the AIADMK swept to power then, this agriculture-dependent town helped the DMK leader maintain his unblemished record of wins to the Assembly.

The bond is easy to explain — just 25 km from here is the village Thirukuvalai, where he was born; and at Kattur village a few kilometres from Thiruvarur is a memorial to his mother. The house is now a library.

Santhanam, the caretaker, is a martinet. He watches over every visitor hawk-like and stops people from taking photographs. “No journalists allowed, I have been told,” he says firmly.

At Kattur, the gardener, a silent, watchful type, allows people to come into the garden surrounding the memorial, but follows them closely and escorts them out. The place is a getting a fresh daub of paint.

Kalaingar, as the DMK leader is popularly known, is likely to visit the memorial before filing his nomination papers for the elections to be held on May 16. He will also address a public meeting in the evening.

It is possibly because of the inevitability of the election outcome that there is no sign of any active campaigning in this over-grown village, which is primarily a agrarian community as much as any of the other districts in the Cauvery delta.

But the voters are not without their grouse. R Palanivel, District Secretary, Cauvery Farmers Protection Society, says the rivers and tanks need to be desilted; the town needs to be better connected by rail to Chennai; there is only one girl’s high school and one more needed; road and bridge infrastructure in the surrounding areas have to be upgraded’; a bus stand and ring road to keep heavy vehicles out of the town have been on paper for long and are yet to become a reality.

Some of these find a mention in the DMK’s manifesto for this district including a new bus terminus, over-bridges, desilting of rivers and tanks and an organic fertiliser factory.

Thiruvarur has been the preserve of the DMK since 1996. Previously, from 1980, the CPI(M), which was often in alliance with one of the Dravidian parties, ruled the roost. This time around it is a multi-cornered contest.

With the opposition to the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK split into four, Karunanidhi may find his margin cut to size, say analysts here.

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