On April 14, I landed at Madurai International Airport, bleary-eyed after a 4:50 AM flight from New Delhi, to observe a contest that had quietly become one of the most closely watched elections in Tamil Nadu: Between former finance minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan (PTR) and Tamil filmmaker Sundar C, in a constituency where the DMK’s welfare record, the TVK’s idealist surge, and the BJP-backed alliance’s money and muscle were about to collide.

What had begun as a straightforward DMK holdout (Madurai Central was presumed a safe seat where the AIADMK had not installed a candidate since 1977) had heated up after an anti-incumbency storm whipped up by movie star Vijay and his newly formed Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (Tamil Nadu Victory Party). Claims of governance failures were going viral on social media, and even in the national capital, alarm bells were going off about a possible surprise upset. Naturally, the only way to find out what was happening was to parachute oneself onto the ground.

On arriving in Madurai, what struck me first was the heat: In searing temperatures marked by record humidity, campaigning was impossible for most hours of the day. Yet, candidates trudged along, handkerchiefs in party colours soaked over the course of rallies and roadshows, door-to-door campaigns and temple visits, each trying to outdo the other in terms of the crowds they attracted and the viral allegations they could level at each other.

An otherwise routine election turned acrimonious when Sundar C levelled allegations of fiscal impropriety on the part of PTR and his team, accusing him of a 200 crore rupee scam that was emblematic of how little the minister, shifted from finance into the relatively lower profile IT ministry in 2023, had done for the constituency. A war of words ensued, with PTR hitting back at Sundar C and his........

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