“It is true that we have opportunities during the election campaign, but for the rest of the year, we are mostly tossed aside like curry leaves, with very few works coming our way,” says Kumar from Namakkal, known by everyone in his neighbourhood as Vijaykanth Kumar, who, since 1991, has been mirroring DMDK founder Vijayakant at poll campaigns.

“This is our full-time job, and post the election season, we usually turn to temple festivals, carnivals, and weddings. That sustains us for six months in a year. Once, an IT company invited us to surprise their employees, but work is not much beyond that. We push through every day during non-election years too,” says Mr. Kumar, adding that he has earned pretty well this election campaign, compared to the previous ones.