Nagpur: The DMK is a strong political outfit that may come to power in Tamil Nadu. Though not contesting here, the acronym — DMK — is the Congress party’s victory mantra in Nagpur where it has pitted a relatively weak ‘outsider’ Nana Patole against BJP heavyweight Nitin Gadkari The Congress is desperately hoping that the Dalit-Muslim-Kunbi (DMK) consolidation would come to its rescue this time. Patole belongs to Kunbi community which along with the Dalits and Muslims are traditionally inclined towards the Congress.If these big three vote chunks favour the Congress the margin of 2.84 lakh votes of Gadkari in his Lok Sabha debut election in 2014 could shrink, supporters of Patole claim. According to the party, of the 21 lakh voters, nearly 12 fall in the DMK category.Focusing on this strategy, the Congress is hoping Patole emerges as the 2019’s biggest ‘giant killer’ as the city votes on April 11. Patole was indeed a giant killer in 2014 when he defeated Nationalist Congress Party’s stalwart Praful Patel from Bhandara-Gondia constituency in eastern Vidarbha. But that time he was in the BJP and got elected riding the Modi wave.A known (political) party hopper, Patole quit the BJP accusing the Modi government of being apathetic toward farmers. Its another matter that he had quit the Congress in 2009 for the same reason.Soon after returning to the Congress in 2017, he expressed interest in taking on Gadkari from Nagpur and the party obliged him dumping Vilas Muttemwar who had won the seat for the Congress for four terms in a row — 1998 to 2014.“With no wave like last time, we are confident that our traditional voters — Dalits, Muslims and Kunbis — would come back to us,” said city Congress president Vikas Thakre who is steering Patole’s campaign. He claimed that there are four lakh voters each of Dalits and Kunbis while the Muslim vote is to the tune of three lakh. “If the voter turnout is over 60%, we will get the edge over BJP,” said Thakre.It is after a lapse of 28 years that the Congress has fielded a Kunbi candidate here. The last one was Datta Meghe in 1991 who won that election. Though the RSS was born and proliferated from Nagpur, it has till recently been a Congress stronghold.Gadkari was only the second BJP candidate to have won from here. The first was Banwarilal Purohit — the current Tamil Nadu governor — in 1996 having switched over from the Congress to the BJP as a ‘Ram Bhakt’ in the Babri aftermath.At the same time, there are several exceptions from the past that defy the ‘DMK’ theory. Muttemwar, the four-time winner from the city for the Congress was a Komthi, a minority vote here. A Parsee, Gev Awari won the seat for the Congress in 1977.On the other hand, his Kunbi roots could not ensure a win for Vinod Gudadhe Patil in 1999 who contested on the BJP ticket but was defeated by Muttemwar. The two BJP winners of the seat — Gadkari and Purohit — are high caste Brahmins disproving the ‘ DMK ‘ myth.“The Congress is resorting to caste, community and religious divide now because the party knows it has no chance of winning this seat. Patole can never match Gadkari in personality or performance. No wonder they are coming out with imaginary ideas of ‘DMK’ which has never worked in Nagpur,” said Sudhakar Deshmukh, Gadkari’s election in-charge for the April 11 elections. He is confident that Gadkari would win five lakh votes this time on the basis of his developmental agenda.

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