Star Candidate: TR BAALU / DMK

CHENNAI: A six-time MP hailing from Thanjavur but representing Sriperumbudur, the industrial heartland of Chennai, TR Baalu is the lone candidate in the poll fray belonging to the pre-1967 era of Tamil Nadu politics. An engineering graduate and industrialist, the octogenarian, who was a DMK member since 1957, rose to prominence in the DMK in the early 1980s when he became the secretary of the all-powerful Chennai district unit. Lady luck smiled on him in 1982 when the deceased Dravidian stalwart Karunanidhi nominated him to the Rajya Sabha in the heyday of ‘Murasoli’ Maran.

Elected to the Lok Sabha first in 1996, he went on to become the petroleum minister at the age of 55, which was very young by the standards of politics then. Re-elected to the lower house again in 1998, he was elevated to the level of the party whip in the Parliament in 1998. He went on to become environment minister in the NDA government headed by AB Vajypayee in 1999. The best of his ministership was seen in Manmohan Singh-led UPA-1 tenure in 2004.

As the Shipping and Road Transport Minister Baalu implemented the controversial pet project of the DMK, Sethu Shipping Canal Project. Unable to secure a Cabinet berth despite winning in 2009, Baalu had to be content with membership of various Parliamentary committees and the chairmanship of the standing committee on railways in the UPA-II tenure.

His winning spree ended in 2014 after the party drew a blank in the 2014 Parliamentary polls. Thanks to the near sweep in 2019, Baalu was elected for the sixth term then. In the interim, Baalu’s position in the DMK rose to the level of the top three. Currently, the treasurer of the DMK and leader of the Parliamentary party, the many-time minister is having what is probably believed by his party men to be one last crack at power, and hopefully ministership in the event of INDIA overpowering Modi’s BJP in June 2024. A leader having the ears of DMK president MK Stalin and a tough negotiator who does the hard bargaining with allies to frustrating levels, Baalu is the seasoned war horse who would be keen on inching closer to, if not outdo, his five lakh and odd vote margin victory of 2019 in a triangular contest involving Dr Premkumar of the AIADMK and V N Venugopal of TMC (Moopanar).