All three members of lottery giant Santiago Martin’s family passed muster in their debut elections. His wife Leema Rose Martin, who contested on an AIADMK ticket from the Lalgudi constituency in Trichy, defeated her DMK rival T Parivallal by 2,500 votes. His son Jose Charles Martin, who launched a new party called Latchiya Jananayaga Katchi (LJK) in the Union Territory of Puducherry, won by a resounding margin of over ten thousand votes.
While the victory of the mother and son was almost a given, it’s Martin’s estranged son-in-law Aadhav Arjuna who finds himself at the centre of one of the biggest disruptions in the history of Tamil Nadu politics. He defeated his DMK rival Karthik Mohan by more than 17,000 votes.
Karthik Mohan’s defeat is particularly significant. Known to be close to MK Stalin’s son-in-law V Sabareesan, Karthik was expected to contest from Anna Nagar in Chennai. But in a tussle within the party, Udayanidhi Stalin prevailed, and Karthik was fielded from Villivakkam.
In our last article on the basketballer turned businessman turned election strategist turned politician, we billed Aadhav Arjuna as the dark horse of these elections. That article suggested that if Aadhav’s gamble with the TVK paid off, the Martins might yet mend bridges with the ‘lost lamb’.
With Aadhav set to play second-in-command to Vijay in the upcoming TVK government, his relations with his family has become a matter of larger public interest. By the time he joined the TVK, he had no formal links to the Martin group of companies which is fighting multiple cases of money laundering and financial fraud in different parts of the country.
But more serious questions are likely to arise in the coming days about his links to the controversial family, especially considering that his wife Daisy continues to be a major stakeholder in multiple companies owned by the family.
People close to the family had told TNM during the campaign, Aadhav found himself sidelined in the family because Martin’s son Jose Charles felt threatened by him. Sources say that it is this rivalry that pushed Jose Charles to enter politics. He wanted to prove his worth to his father who once saw Aadhav as his heir apparent.
The way things stand at the end of the campaign, the lottery king’s son has a long and arduous road ahead of him. While he managed to secure his own seat comfortably, his party’s only other candidate in the fray crashed to fourth place.
When he started building his base through massive charitable projects in Puducherry two years ago, Jose Charles had plans to contest all 30 seats and dreamt of sweeping the elections in 2026. The practicalities of being a member of a controversial business empire ultimately forced him to scale his dreams down and contest just two seats as part of the BJP led NDA alliance. With the NDA winning comfortably in Puducherry, it will be interesting to see how he is accommodated in the cabinet and what happens to the cases against him and his family.
