Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 17 : The Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency of Tamil Nadu has set the stage for a triangular battle between Dravidian majors - Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
DMK's A Raja is seeking re-election against the BJP's L Murugan and AIADMK's Logesh Tamil Selvan in Nilgiris.
Nilgiris, comprising six assembly segments--Udhagamandalam, Cuddalore, Coonoor, Mettupalayam, Avanashi, and Bhavanisagar--has 14,18,914 voters.
The Nilgiris Parliamentary Constituency is a meeting point for three states, namely Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. Apart from that, there are important seats spread across 4 districts, namely Ooty, Coonoor and Cuddalore assembly constituencies in Nilgiri district, Mettupalayam assembly constituency in Coimbatore district, Avanashi assembly constituency in Tirupur district and Bhavanisagar assembly constituency in Erode district.
Agriculture, tourism and weaving are the main industries in this Nilgiri parliamentary constituency, which is 50 per cent hilly and 50 per cent plain.
In these three constituencies of Ooty, Coonoor and Cuddalore, tea cultivation and mountain vegetable cultivation are the major industries. Apart from this, industries such as chocolate manufacturing and Ooty varki manufacturing are the main industries.
Nilgiris has supported the Congress seven times, the DMK three times and the AIADMK and BJP twice.
DMK's A Raja won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and is currently the Member of Parliament for Nilgiris. Raja defeated AIADMK's Thiyagarajan, securing 5,47,832 votes by a margin of over 2 lakh votes.
However, A Raja lost the election in 2014 to AIADMK's C Gopalakrishnan.
Looking at major issues in the different assembly segments of Nilgiris, the Padukhar people living in large numbers in the Nilgiris should be included in the tribal list, the IT park should be opened to provide employment opportunities to the youth in the closed Hindustan photo factory, the ban on the issuance of certificates should be relaxed in the Nilgiris and the poor people should be given degrees, etc.
After solving the Section 17 land problem in Kudalur constituency, the people living in these areas should be given leases, the houses built on Section 17 land should be provided with electricity, and the tribal villages of Kurumbar, Baniyar, and Kattunayakar living in Kudalur and Bandalur areas should be provided with basic facilities, including road facilities, to avoid the long-standing human-wildlife conflict.
Also, problems such as non-permanence, non-payment of benefits, and non-construction of houses for the large number of workers working in the government tea corporation plantations at Dandee in Kudalur and Coonoor.
Another main demand is to expand the Coonoor bus station, to construct a flyover to cross the mountain railway in Coonoor, and to provide parking facilities.
There are not many factories in Mettupalayam. Due to this, the educated youth in this constituency have fewer job opportunities. Therefore, the people here have an expectation to setting up industrial companies.
Proper space facilities for vegetable mandis and road facilities, as well as a vegetable market with more space, should be established, Mettupalayam city has a long-standing demand to fix the traffic by constructing a bypass road as there is heavy vehicular traffic in the morning and evening hours.
Apart from this, the already announced Karuvepila factory is yet to be established. The improvement of Mettupalayam Government Hospital, Nellithura Vilamarathur drinking water project should be implemented. Lately, there has been an increase in the movement of wild elephants and leopards in the Mettupalayam area. It is the demand of the people of this block that action should be taken to prevent wild animals from entering residential areas and croplands.
In the last few years, due to persistent drought, the groundwater table has gone below 1800 feet, and the agricultural industry is failing. As a result, agricultural lands are being converted into plots and sold.
After this, the agricultural labourers started going to work in Banyan companies in Tirupur and also switched to the power loom industry. Currently, Banyan companies are also starting to increase in the Avanasi area.

The Avanasi Athikadavu project, which has been a 60-year demand of the people of the region, is now more than 90 per cent complete, and the farmers and the public are waiting for it to be completed in a few days. Also, there is a demand to connect more than 1,400 ponds that are missing in the scheme.
There has been a 35-year-old demand to avail ST certificates to more than 30,000 Malayalis living in the Kadampur hill region. They have demanded to fulfil this as they are not getting many benefits like education, employment, bank loan waiver etc.
Voting for all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will be held in the first phase of the general elections on April 19.
In the 2019 general elections, the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance, comprising the Congress, VCK, MDMK, CPI, CPI(M), IUML, MMK, KMDK, TVK, and AIFB, registered a landslide victory, winning 38 of the 39 seats in the state
The election for 543 Lok Sabha seats in the country will be held in seven phases starting April 19. The counting of the votes will take place on June 4.