Meet Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, close friend of DMK scion Udhayanidhi Stalin

Even as criticisms of ‘dynasts’ ruling the DMK run down the line during the campaigns in the run-up to the 2021 Assembly elections, Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, popularly known as Mahesh, is an undeterred man. Clad in white and white, with a DMK flag-coloured shawl draped around his neck, Mahesh walks down the narrow lanes of the middle-class Thiruverumbur Assembly constituency, on the outskirts of Trichy, seeking votes for DMK's rising sun.

He tells people the seven promises made by his leader, M.K. Stalin, as he seeks votes. "People here don't look at me as a dynast. They only want their legislator to be a person who can deliver," tells Mahesh. Son of Anbil Poyyamozhi and the grandson of Anbil Dharmalingam, 43-year-old Mahesh is a sitting MLA, seeking re-election from Thiruverumbur.

Mahesh is very tired after walking over 10km to seek votes. "I can go in a jeep and campaign. But I want to meet people and they too should know their candidate," he tells THE WEEK while getting back to his campaign office to meet cadres. As he sits down to have dinner at his campaign office, DMK leader M.K. Stalin and DMK's youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin smile at him from a huge poster pasted on the wall. Mahesh, along with Stalin and Udhayanidhi, is all smiles in the poster.

"You are very close to the DMK president and his son," I ask. He shoots back, "My family has always been the DMK family like Kalaignar family. My grandfather was a party worker whom Annadurai would pick up to take part in party meetings," tells Mahesh. He recalls the days when his grandfather, Dharmalingam, used to work in the farm with his father and would run seeing Annadurai. Dharmalingam, one of the founder-members of DMK, was a close associate of M. Karunanidhi. Dharmalingam was known as the 'iron man' of DMK. And the friendship continued in the next generation, with Karunanidhi's son, Stalin, and Dharmalingam's son, Poyyamozhi, being best buddies.

"I have always spent my school vacation at Gopalapuram. During those days, I never realised how my grandfather and Kalaignar's contribution are ideologically shaping the state and the depth of their politics," tells Mahesh. Apparently, Mahesh's active political journey in the DMK began only after his father died of cardiac arrest when Mahesh was just 22. It was a day after a public rally in Trichy with Stalin that Poyyamozhi had a cardiac arrest. "Because my father was Stalin's friend or because I was his friend's son, I didn't get party post immediately after my father's death," he points out. Mahesh, who had completed his MCA and then went on to work in an IT company, would never miss any public rally or party meetings. Mahesh's elevation in the party came only 16 years after his father died and only when he proved himself.

And in February 2020, he was elevated as the party's Tiruchi South district secretary only to fill in the giant shoes of DMK's Tiruchi strongman K.N. Nehru. In fact, when Nehru was moved to the DMK headquarters as principal secretary, it was even openly criticised by many DMK seniors that the party had created one more unit—Tiruchi Central—by tweaking the jurisdictions of Tiruchi South and North units only to accommodate Mahesh. But Mahesh dismisses all such criticisms, saying, "Only when the party cadres and the public accept, people like me can come up. Our leader, Stalin, has made this clear many times." But Mahesh is embarrassed when the opposition AIADMK and, now, the BJP calls the DMK the party of dynasts. "We are not given posts in the DMK just because we are the sons and daughters of seniors. It took 16 years for me to reach here. And unlike in any other party, DMK rewards its cadres only when we prove ourselves," he declared. And this election too, Mahesh is out there in the constituency, putting all his energy out to pull a victory, as he knows, "hard work pays”. If DMK comes to power, he might even be a minister in Stalin' cabinet.