This time around, the contest in Mylapore promises to be interesting, largely due to the presence of Lok Paritran contesting this seat. Lok Paritran is expected to recover their deposit in this seat, in all other constituencies they are expected to lose their deposit, in spite of the tremendous media coverage they have recieved.

In Mylapore alone, I feel they might be able to win, this is the seat they have at least an outside chance at winning, they are the underdog here. In the other constituencies if they win, it is nothing short of a miracle, but in Mylapore I wouldn’t be too surprised. Lok Paritran’s vote bank are the educated middle class voters, those tired with the current crop of politicians and looking for a change. Apart from this the party is banking extensively on students, and youngsters in the age group 18-25. But the problem is political apathy of this section of the population. They are indifferent towards the entire political process and I doubt many of them have their names in the voters list, and even if they do will they take the trouble to vote. But if this section does turn out to vote in large numbers, I give Lok Paritran a good chance of winning this seat.

Historically the turnout has ranged between 40-55%, and the winning candidate has secured between 40-50% of the valid votes polled, which means that the party has the support of 20-25% of the electorate. Most of the voters are from the slums, while those who don’t turn out to vote are the educated, Lok Paritran’s vote bank. With a high turnout probably in the range of above 80% Lok Paritran stand an outside chance of winning the elections, otherwise it’s a straight fight between ADMK and DMK. The challenge for Lok Paritran is to get their votebank to the polling booth, and this seems unlikely considering a large proportion of their vote bank aren’t on the electoral rolls. If they can translate the support they enjoy into votes, they do have an outside chance, but right now translating their support into votes seems unlikely.