With polling slated for Wednesday in the Sattankulam assembly by-election in Tuticorin district, the otherwise nondescript, backward constituency has suddenly generated a lot of interest in Tamil Nadu.

There are 175,000 voters in this constituency, a majority of them being Christian Nadars, followed by Dalits and a few Muslims.

The constituency has always returned a Congress candidate, except in 1996, when the Tamil Maanila Congress won.

The by-election was due to the death of TMC member Mani Nadar who, along with four other party MLAs, had refused to merge with the Congress last year.

Though his wife Janaki was quick to join the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, it has not helped the ruling party.

Not having contested the seat even once since its inception in 1972, the ruling AIADMK is on untested soil. It is the anti-conversion law passed by the AIADMK government and defended by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa that has become the party's central campaign theme.

Jayalalithaa spent an unprecedented five days campaigning for the bypoll, where she repeatedly sought to reassure the 'non-Hindu' majority, particularly the Christians, that they had nothing to fear from the new law.

AIADMK ministers called on local church leaders and also arranged for some of them to call on the chief minister. But the church leaders have not taken the bait. They have made it clear that they will not vote for the AIADMK.

Interestingly, the Congress, which is the other main contestant in absence of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is not harping on the anti-conversion law any more. It says the "anti-establishment mood of the voter, caused by non-populist decisions of the state government", is the main issue.

The Congress has also fielded a Hindu Nadar like the AIADMK with an aim to split the Nadar votebank.

The candidates are Neelamegavarnam of the AIADMK and A Mahendran of the Congress, both locals.

The Congress is also playing upon the voters' apprehensions of violence on polling day, as in the case of previous bypolls.

The Election Commission has stepped in to evict all 'outsiders' from the constituency before polling day, including 10 ministers and 55 AIADMK legislators. The EC has also sent five observers to the constituency and has barred outsiders from being named polling agents.

Further, it has deputed central government officials to each of the 137 polling stations, but has rejected the Congress' demand for deploying the Central Reserve Police Force.