Coimbatore has been an industrious and cultural place for the last 2000 years. A famous chola period highway goes through our city and many Iron Age factories have existed in the Kongu region. It has had trade with Rome and has been a cultural hotspot with many ancient temples and heritage centres in and around the city.
Coimbatore has been an industrious and cultural place for the last 2000 years. A famous chola period highway goes through our city and many Iron Age factories have existed in the Kongu region. It has had trade with Rome and has been a cultural hotspot with many ancient temples and heritage centres in and around the city.
From the day the city was announced a corporation 215 years ago it has been a major industrial center of the state even in modern times. The unique factor about its tremendous growth is that the city owes its growth to the enterprising business community of Coimbatore despite having very little support from various governments.
Coimbatore parliamentary constituency has shown uniqueness as far as elections are concerned too. The voting pattern and the past history of candidates winning from the constituency says a lot. Coimbatore being the major business hub of Tamil Nadu, labour welfare organisations and unions have a definite say in the elections with the sheer amount of labour force prevailing in the city. The surprising fact is that Coimbatore with a major leaning towards left wing ideology is the city which is also considered to be one of the strongholds of BJP apart from Kanyakumari.
Coimbatore has over 86% educated voters and we have given chance for change to all major political parties in the reckoning. Everyone from the Congress, Communists, DMK, AIADMK or the BJP, Coimbatore has given a fair run to every party. But the underlying feeling that no party has done justice to the potential of Coimbatore looms larger than the victories the previous candidates have been accorded by the people of Coimbatore.
History of winners in Coimbatore Lok Sabha Constituency
Out of the 18 parliamentary elections including 2 by-elections during the period of 1 st and 5th loksabha, the national parties have won most elections. Communist- 7, Congress - 6, while the regional parties have won only thrice. after the rise of BJP since 1990s, it has won twice.
The Constituency has a total voters strength of 19,31,558 of which 9,65,120 are male voters, 9,66,239 female voters and 199 transgenders. Coimbatore parliamentary constituency consists of six assembly constituencies - Palladam, Sulur, Kavundampalayam, Coimbatore North, Coimbatore South and Singanallur.
Members of the parliament in Coimbatore
Coimbatore's connection with Communists
Communist parties have started making inroads right after the constitution of first loksabha in 1951 when Congress party was considered to be supreme. In the 1952 By elections, Communist party fielded a female candidate, Parvathy Krishnan, who lost to N.M.Lingam of INC by 41,327 votes but she won in 1957 defeating P.S.Rangaswamy of Indian national Congress.
Parvathy krishnan , daughter of P. Subbarayan, Chief minster of undivided Madras province pre independence won thrice in 1952, 1974 & 1977 out of the five times she contested in Coimbatore. Communist party was able to maintain a strong hold over Coimbatore in those years even when Congress was then a powerful national party.
And they have also ruled from 2004 to 2014 and oversaw the period were Coimbatore’s development stalled considerably. In total, the Communists had governed Coimbatore for 7 times out of the 18 Parliamentary elections and they have generally been powerful due to the huge workforce in Coimbatore. But with industries dwindling and the shutdown of many textile mills due to economic and labour issues, the stock of Communists continued to fall.
The Rise of BJP
The Communists had a strong hold in Coimbatore because of the strength of labour unions in textile and engineering industries and the transport sector. Coimbatore also had a huge agricultural area under Cotton cultivation and the farmers growing cotton also had an inclination towards Communist parties.
In the late 80's started the downfall of textile mills majorly due to labour issues which lead to the closure of major textile mills in Coimbatore. Most of the mills were closed and some like Murugan mills, Ranga Vilas Mills, Stanes Mill, Somasundara Mills became nationalised. Coimbatore's economy was based on the thousands of mills involved in spinning, weaving and ginning. The closure of mills caused a direct impact on the livelihood of lakhs of mill workers and this lead to a dislike towards communists. There was a political vaccum which was utilised well by the then rising BJP to strengthen their base in this region.
In the history of Coimbatore 1998 bomb blasts have a major role in transforming the city's economy and social fabric. The 1998 bomb blasts changed the world's perception of Coimbatore completely. The city which was known to be a calm, safe place with a natural, pleasant climate and warm welcoming people henceforth was looked as a place where there was an imminent threat of communal clashes. The murder of a policeman, the ensuing riots and then the bomb blasts when BJP national leader, LK Advani came to Coimbatore has forever changed the social fabric of the city.
Loss of lives, bombs at the government hospital and bombs traced in public places all pointing towards fundamentalistic islamic terrorists completely changed the way the majority Hindu community was treating the Muslims. Religious harmony which was considered to be the basic fibre of the city was devasted post bomb blast.
BJP was on the rise in the national front and a city which was shaken by fundamentalistic Islamic terror gave way for the BJP’s ideology to foster. Being the cultural hotspot as it is, the people of Coimbatore have always taken pride in the heritage of Coimbatore. Thus when their dreams of harmony were shattered by the terror outfits and rioters, BJP’s agenda of preserving culture and focusing on development started to gain ground in this important constituency.
C.P.Radhakrishnan won with a whopping margin of 1,44,676 votes over the ruling DMK candidate K. R. Subbaiyan in 1998. Again in 1999, after AIADMK withdrew its support to the BJP in the centre, by-polls were held and again C.P.Radhakrishnan won against one of the most respected Communist leaders R.Nallakannu with a margin of 54,077 votes.
"There was not even one ward councillor for BJP when we won the parliamentary elections in 1998. From there we have grown to a party with a considerable base in Coimbatore sure about winning " stated C.P.Radhakrishnan in an interview to SimpliCity which clearly elucidates the growth of BJP in Coimbatore.
Inspite of the fact that BJP lost in the succesive elections, the party was able to increase its support base by a considerable percentage.
Coimbatore back to Communists in 2004
In 2004 CPR lost to K. Subbarayan of CPI again but by that time Communists could not win without an alliance. The two elections 1999 and 2004 saw the right wing BJP fighting against communist parties and each party won once. In 2009 elections, current communist candidate, PR Natarajan won from Coimbatore thus continuing the trend of communists holding sway over the constituency. But during this time from 2004 to 2014, Coimbatore faced the wrath of power cuts and everyone from the MSME to normal households struggled considerably.
This was broken when the AIADMK won outright in 2014 amidst a huge Modi wave prevailing all over the country. People by that time have had enough of the power cuts and broken promises and both DMK and communists were routed completely.
This is the third time when BJP is facing Communist party directly in Coimbatore with CPR against P.R.Natarajan of CPI (M) this time. So both these contestants might already know what is required to beat each other.
The face off in 2019
Out of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies, Coimbatore is the only constituency where the Left vs Right ideology clash directly. BJP and CPI(M) face off in Coimbatore bringing back memories from 2 decades back.
The DMK alliance had allocated two constituencies each to CPI and CPI(M). CPI(M) has fielded its candidates in Madurai and Coimbatore and CPI in Tiruppur and Nagapattinam. In all the three constituencies except Coimbatore its AIADMK in the rival camp.
The importance of the Kongu region in the national purview of the BJP is the fact that the Prime Minister started his electoral campaign in Tirupur on February 9 which is very much part of the Kongu belt and again Modi came back to Coimbatore exactly after two months on April 9 to campaign for AIADMK-BJP alliance, which shows the importance of this constituency at the national level.
Coimbatore Loksabha constituency till few years ago had a distinct character where the national parties won elections better than the regional parties. In particular even if BJP and Communist parties are not so strong politically, ideologically both the parties have a strong base here according to experts.
BJP with AIADMK support and Communist parties in the DMK-Congress alliance will be facing each other yet again. GST is the main focus point of both the alliances particularly the reduction of GST for job orders in engineering sector from 18% to 5% seems to be the primary issue. The MSME sector in Coimbatore has been affected to a great extend by GST and it has lead to closure of thousands of small units according to reports from the TN Government.
It’s the economy that will hold sway
Though on the outlook its seen as a clash of ideologies between the left and right wing, the economic and social factors affecting the common man and the industrial climate of Coimbatore will play the most important role in deciding the winning candidate from Coimbatore.
The Communist agenda has mostly been seen as anti-development. Even in the most recent interview to SimpliCity, PR Natarajan had indifferent views about the long pending Coimbatore airport expansion which has been one of the main reasons why Coimbatore’s development has stalled - he asked the private entrepreneurs to build an airport if it is so necessary for them. While the labour force might see the communists as favouring their rights, most common people believe that without job generation, there might not be a labour force to work with. While job order GST is their poll promise, their other development agendas have mostly fallen on deaf ears because of their past track record. The massive power cuts in the region literally took the wind from the sails of every industry and household in Coimbatore. Everyday saw 8-12 hour power cuts and every industry from textiles, manufacturing, IT & ITES like BPO suffered at the hands of poor administration of the power scenario.
While development is the issue with the communists, BJP in general had come to power pitching development as their main agenda. While development has been their main agenda, haphazard implementation of Demonetisation and GST have caused a huge impact in the Kongu region largely because Coimbatore's industrial sector except for the top few businesses were part of the informal economy. Cash transcations was the only way the micro, small and medium businessess carried on with their daily financial routines.
The Demonetisation announcement on Nov 8, 2017 came as a huge blow to thousands of industries in this region which were thriving majorly on daily cash transactions. Data says post demonetisation and GST, 50,000 small and micro units were closed down which lead to thousands of labourers losing jobs in the region. Most small businessmen who went out of business while agreeing that good schemes like GST are needed for the country, the implementation has been largely insensitive and basic requirements like job order GST have not been implement even after repeated pleas. What has particularly irked them is the fact that even in the last revision of GST which happened in January this simple request was not ceded and now it has come up as a poll promise.
Even when the BJP has been in the center like in the last 5 years, Coimbatore’s airport expansion and night train to Bangalore have not been pushed with vigour even after several representations were made to various ministers in the Government. Various industries that have had tremendous success and added pride to Coimbatore like the jewellery industry, wet grinder industry, pump manufacturing industry and textile industry were almost brought to a standstill. Many small businesses which depended on these industries went out of business.
AIADMK which won in 2014 had a very poor track record in representing Coimbatore in the parliament for the last 5 years. Now that BJP and AIADMK are in the same alliance might work well for the numbers but not exactly well in terms of optics.
With the Communists, the business environment of Coimbatore has always been nervous with the perception that unions wreck workflow. The same international airport expansion, night trains and increasing of industrial output and job generation issues can squarely be laid at the feet of communists too for they have governed Coimbatore from 2004-2014 and none of these issues have ever been solved.
The DMK allocating the critical Coimbatore and Tirupur constituencies to Communists when the business environment has been very bad is also seen as a strategic mistake by many.
And with both parties having their fair share of failures in the past, new parties like AMMK and Makkal Needhi Maiam have grabbed the attention of the voters in Coimbatore. This is particularly more visible with the youngsters who don’t want these legacy parties to come back. Will they play spoil sport to the established parties is something we will only know on May 23rd.
So will the people put the trust in BJP to rectify the issues or opt for change and vote for Communists in 2019 in Coimbatore? Whichever way the final result goes, this will be the most interesting outcome of this election.