Chennai: The electoral battle for Royapuram, an arterial northern part of the city, has become very prestigious for the opposition DMK, which is desperately attempting to wrest back the seat it lost to AIADMK’s D Jayakumar way back in 2001.
Elections to 234 Assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be held on April 6, with counting to be taken up on May 2.
Jayakumar, senior AIADMK leader and state fisheries minister, has bulldozed candidates of DMK and its ally Congress in four consecutive elections, made the constituency an AIADMK bastion and established his virtually undisputed supremacy.
Jayakumar, also the AIADMK organising secretary, scripted his own success in remaining as the MLA of Royapuram Assembly constituency for a quarter of a century, inflicting humiliating defeats on successive DMK and Congress candidates who challenged him.
“DJ Annan,” (elder brother) as he is affectionately called by his supporters in his constituency, had lost only during the 1996 assembly…