Did the DMK-Left cross vote for BJP to defeat Kamal Haasan in Coimbatore ?

 Chennai, May4 : The defeat of Kamal Haasan in Coimbatore is said to be the cross voting by DMK- Left parties in favour of BJP. Sources say that on polling day and feedback from cadres, it was evident that the fight will ultimately be between BJP and Kamal Haasan. The INC backed by DMK- Left was in position to take on the AIADMK- BJP and even romp home but the entry of Kamal Haasan upset this calculations. The urban electorate that would have plumped for Congress and the blue collared for Left in Coimbatore seemed to be influenced by the actor and his party  

The Left cadres had a grouse as the actor had slammed CPM boss Yechury for not agreeing to a political alliance and dubbing him as a person not in tune with the present times. DMK cadres were fuming over the insensitive comment on wheelchair politics - reference to Late Karunanidhi,

The only time Coimbatore bucked the  trend of  being part of AIADMK fortress of West Tamil Nadu was in the 2019 LS poll when it elected a Left candidate,  Seeing the writing on the , DMK- Left cadres were asked to divert a sizeable/numbers in each booth to the BJP  said a source. On the polling day, DMK found that Kamal was garnering more than expected and BJP would lose if it's votes were not diverted in big numbers, revealed a party manager.

Predictably the counting trends moved on lines of Kamal v/s INC's Mayura and then moved to MNM v/s BJP. The actor kept  a slender lead till 14th round where he had 1148 votes lead. The coming booths too should keep this lead for the actor. The coming booths that went for counting reversed the trend as these areas were the ones where DMK- Left cross voted for BJP, pointed out the campaigner.

The outcome ended with Kamal losing to Vanathi by 1300 odd votes. This according to the source is lesser than the 3000 votes got under NOTA in 2016 State poll. The source pointed out that it was the DMK that had the numbers to swing the outcome and the CPM with a negligible number went along.

The  actor lost by a meagre 1300 votes against  93,000 votes  in the AIADMK+ BJP kitty ( as per 2016 poll results) and a cross voting by DMK whose ally INC in 2016 got  42,369 votes ,  has rattled the political camps .

Many advised Kamal to pitch for Mylapore or Velachery for many reasons. Primary both the seats are urban and have a good number of Brahmins and educated IT professional - first time voters. These areas also has many NGO and other groups that would whip up a campaign for Kamal. 

Kamal felt that the Brahmin tag will stick to him, if he wins from these areas and would affect his atheist  belief.  Secondly, the grass root organisational skill of both Dravidian parties in Chennai cannot be matched by MNM. It was  felt that Star charisma will not cut across  party lines in the Capital. Above all, the voter turnout in Chennai was very poor and for a fledgling party this meant trouble.