In the 2021 Assembly Elections, the ruling AIADMK was swept away by a DMK wave in the KTCC districts (Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Chengalpattu, and Chennai), barring one single seat – Madurantakam. Maragatham Kumaravel, a seasoned AIADMK leader and a Lok Sabha member for the party during 2014-19 period, stood tall among the ruins. She regained the seat in the 2026 elections amid a TVK wave in the region, giving rise to claims that it was an AIADMK bastion.

Then came the twist. Barely three weeks after the declaration of results, Ms. Maragatham, along with five of her colleagues, resigned from the Assembly and joined the TVK. She is now recast as the TVK candidate for the Madurantakam by-election scheduled for October 6.

On Friday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay held a four-and-a-half-hour-long roadshow in the constituency. People lined up in large numbers all along the route, which crisscrossed the constituency touching about three dozen villages.

If the turnout of people translates to votes for the party, the TVK would win. But often, what is apparent isn’t real, warns Ashok, a grocery store owner in Ayyanar Nagar. “Not all those who gather at Vijay’s rallies would vote for TVK. I went there too to catch a glimpse of him but I may not vote for them,” he states.

In course of a chat, he lets out a crucial fact that could well decide the fate of the election: the PMK’s position. The party had announced that it would stay neutral during the by-elections after a fallout with its alliance partner AIADMK over the choice of candidates. While there are unconfirmed reports of possible backchannel negotiations between the PMK and the TVK, Mr. Ashok says that the supporters on ground aren’t aware of what the party’s stand is as yet. “Last two elections (2021 and 2026), PMK was in alliance with AIADMK and the candidate won. So, whoever the PMK supports will have an advantage,” he asserts.

There may be some meat in this argument, especially since Vanniyars, the prime support base of the PMK, constitute more than 30% of the electorate. They are the largest group after the Scheduled Caste communities, which constitute a little over 40% of the electorate. Madurantakam is a constituency reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates.

As campaigning draws to a close on Sunday evening, the opposition candidates seem to have strung a common tune: the election has been forced down upon the people of Madurantakam.

P. Suganthi, the CPI(M) candidate, said that people voted for the TVK with the hope of a change, but the switch-over of AIADMK MLAs soon after election showed that the party wasn’t much different from the BJP at the Centre. On her campaign trail on Friday, she encountered unsavoury comments from DMK supporters in Athimanam village, perhaps an indication of tensions between the two former alliance partners.

Taking a similar stand, B. Valarmathi, former AIADMK minister, said that people of the constituency felt betrayed with the resignation of Ms. Maragatham within 21 days of the declaration of results. S. Kanitha Sampath, the AIADMK candidate, recalled the days when she helped Ms. Maragatham during her electoral debut in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and said that people will respond to her “betrayal” on October 6.

I. Paranthamen, the DMK candidate, said this was an unnecessary election thrust on the people in an undemocratic way and they would respond wisely. “People are angry. They are reeling from price rise, increase in electricity tariff, and change of terms of the rural employment guarantee scheme,” he maintained.

Close to the bus stand, a group of white-clad individuals, adorning red stoles, went about distributing pamphlets. They were members of the United Communist Party of India (UCPI) and were canvassing votes for the DMK. “Though from the Left ecosystem, we are not with the CPI and the CP(M) and believe that DMK is the only powerful ally to take on the might of communal forces in Tamil Nadu,” said Bhaskaran, it’s State secretary.

While campaigning was in its last leg, 72-year-old Babyamma sat under a banyan tree in Mettupalayam watching the “rigmarole” pass by. Asked who would she vote for, she said that she hasn’t made up her mind, although she had voted for irattai ilai (two leaves, the poll symbol of AIADMK) in the past. Asked if she liked Chief Minister Vijay, she replied, “He came [to power] and prices went up.”