Textiles can spin political fortunes and send political bigwigs into a spin. In western Tamil Nadu?s textile belt?from Pollachi to Karur, covering Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode and Salem?a pall of gloom is woven over the national euphoria of victory for the Congress and DMK. Congress or DMK candidates, including former Union minister of state for textiles EVKS Elangovan (Erode) and Tamil Nadu State Congress Committee president K V Thangkabalu (Salem) lost to the AIADMK front candidates. The defeat of the ruling party candidates in this chain of constituencies, which is the heartland of cotton cultivation, spinning, weaving, knitting, fabric-making and associated activities, can be watered down by analytical justifications like ?the area is an AIADMK bastion?. The infighting among Congress cadres is also another convenient explanation. A closer analysis points to the distillation of simmering discontent, especially during the last five years.
The textile belt has been the worst victim of long power cuts. Every unit in the region has felt this power crisis. The people in the region believe that the textile ministry and its minister of state did not support them as they reeled from power cuts, as the rupee-dollar parity fell to all-time lows, as exports declined and as thousands lost their jobs. They also say that when he was finance minister, P Chidamabram did not come to their rescue by easing tax norms or reducing bank rates. They use words like ?anti-textile industry policies of the Congress government?. The DMK government, they say, while investing crores of rupees to build infrastructure in Chennai, did nothing significant in other regions, especially in the textile belt. This neglect, analysts say, led to the creation of a new political outfit, the Kongu Nadu Munnetra Kazhakam. This party contested 12 constituencies in the region and polled votes ranging from 50,000 to 1.25 lakh, tilting the results.
Farmers, industrialists and workers in the textile belt hope the new government, liberated from the fetters of allies, will end the woes of the textile industry, give priority to building infrastructure and facilitate exports through effective interventions and investments.
?joseph.vackayil@expressindia.com
