Shockwaves of Coimbatore Bomb Blasts

With the results out, both Karunanidhi and his TMC ally, G.K. Moopanar, and other leaders of their front were quick to admit that the blasts had played a  vital role in tilting the scales in favour of the AIADMK-BJP combine. While the DMK-TMC leaders were earlier picturising the BJP as the party which sought to usher in communalism with all its ugly manifestations into the State, the average voter saw the BJP in the post-blasts situation as the victim and not the aggressor.

After all, the public meeting venue in Coimbatore where BJP president Advani was to address a meeting at 4 p.m. on February 14 was one of the targets.

The pattern of victories of the AIADMK-BJP front in a vast area around Coimbatore - nearly a dozen constituencies in western Tamil Nadu - reveals a high degree of sympathy and support for this front after the explosions.

Privately, the DMK-TMC camp, prior to the blasts itself, was not hopeful of getting more than 25-28 seats of the 39 in Tamil Nadu. However, the explosions meant that another dozen seats were lost. An indicator of the blasts fuelling an AIADMK-BJP victory in that belt are the high margins of victory .... In the ultimate analysis, the few successes for the DMK-TMC camp have come in the non-western sector. Almost all of them were achieved along the eastern coast ...

The results have shown a very sharp geographical divide - the west and the south almost fully passing into the hands of the AIADMK-BJP front and the DMK-TMC camp having something to cheer about only along the eastern coast which is the farthest distance from the impact of the blasts. ..

The election scenario in Tamil Nadu has in the past revealed a North-South divide with the DMK generally performing well in the North and the AIADMK and the Congress in the south. This is the first time that a polarisation has set in along the west too, influenced  largely by the blasts. If the Sriperumbudur blast in May 1991 helped the AIADMK and its then ally, the Congress, to a sweep in the elections, the blasts in Coimbatore and the fear psychosis created by raids and discoveries of more bombs in other parts of the State helped the AIADMK again in 1998 - this time with the BJP as its beneficiary.

The BJP, which began the election campaign with the hope of at least securing the Nagercoil seat this time (if came a close second there in the 1996 elections), ironically lost the Nagercoil constituency but won the Coimbatore and Nilgiris constituencies on the western side comfortably, apart from Tiruchirapalli in central Tamil Nadu where Advani, fresh from his visit to Coimbatore on that fateful day, addressed a public meeting along with the AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha.        (Source: R. Rangaraj inThe Indian Express, 13 March, 1998)