Melur Assembly constituency in Madurai district is home to Arittapatti, the first biodiversity heritage site in Tamil Nadu. The people of the Assembly constituency have always voiced support for the protection of natural resources.

For about 25 years now, the Melur Assembly constituency has been a bastion of the AIADMK with the party winning consecutively from the 2001 Assembly election to the 2021 Assembly election. The five wins on the trot in the Assembly elections shows that the people of the region have remained loyal to the AIADMK.

However, prior to this winning streak, the Melur Assembly constituency was a stronghold of the Congress. Freedom fighter and Congress leader P. Kakkan, known for his simplicity and integrity, was from Thumbaipatti in Melur.

Congress candidates won from the Melur Assembly constituency consecutively from 1980 to 1991. K.V. Veeranambalam won 1980 and 1984 Assembly elections and K.V.V Rajamanickam won the 1989 and 1991 Assembly elections.

However, in the 1996 Assembly elections, Mr. Rajamanickam represented the Tamil Maanila Congress and won from the Assembly constituency. Since then, the AIADMK has outperformed the others and retained the Assembly constituency

In the 2001, 2006 and 2011 Assembly elections, AIADMK candidate R. Samy, a close aide of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran, recorded a hat-trick of wins from the Assembly constituency. He later joined the AMMK in 2018. He died the same year after a prolonged battle with cancer.

The incumbent MLA P. Periyapullan alias Selvam of the AIADMK won the 2016 and the 2021 Assembly elections from the Melur Assembly constituency. In 2016, Mr. Periyapullan won by a margin of 19,723 votes, defeating DMK candidate A.P. Raghupathy. He improved his winning margin in 2021 defeating Congress candidate T. Ravichandran by a margin of 35,162 votes.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, A. Selvaraj of the AMMK secured a total of 34,262 votes which was 18.8% of the total votes polled in Melur Assembly constituency. In the 2026 Assembly election, the AMMK was a part of the AIADMK-BJP led National Democratic Alliance.

In the 2026 Assembly elections, Mr. Periyapullan will lock horns with former Kancheepuram MP P. Viswanathan of the Congress which was part of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance. Also, in the fray are Kottaikumar of the Naam Tamilar Katchi and A. Maduraiveeran of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam. A farmer, M. Murugan, is also contesting from the Melur Assembly constituency, as an independent candidate.

Agriculture is the primary occupation of the people of the Melur Assembly constituency. However, it has suffered in recent times, said M. Murugan. This led to the people of the region moving to other places in search of employment opportunities, he said.

Being a farmer, Mr. Murugan said the sole reason he was contesting in the Assembly election was to bring attention to the various issues faced by the farmers in the region. He said he was disappointed with the political parties as none of them had addressed the issues of the farmers.

Some of the key issues of the people of Melur Assembly constituency, particularly the Sugarcane farmers include the demand for the reopening of the National Cooperative Sugar Mills in Alanganallur for sugarcane crushing.

There is also a demand to restart the now defunct Madurai District Cooperative Spinning Mills in Melur. The mill began operation in 1960 and provided employment to the people of the region. It benefited about 1,600 families directly and 50,000 families indirectly. Necessary steps should be taken to revamp and restart the mill for the benefit of the people of Melur, the residents said.

The people of Melur Assembly constituency have always prioritised environmental issues and protection of natural resources. In January 2025, over 10,000 farmers and residents from Melur and the nearby regions took out a 25-km procession to Madurai city demanding that the proposed tungsten mining project in Melur be scrapped.

The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly had unanimously adopted a special resolution urging the Union government to immediately cancel the tungsten mining rights granted. Subsequently, the Union Ministry of Mines announced that it had decided to annul the auction of tungsten mineral block in Nayakkarpatti.

The Melur Assembly constituency has also witnessed caste related violence. Melavalavu near Melur witnessed the massacre of six members of a Scheduled Caste by the Caste Hindus in 1997. The Scheduled Caste members were brutally murdered by members of a dominant intermediate caste for contesting in the local bodies elections. In the 1992 Sennagarampatti double murder case, two Scheduled Caste men were murdered after they took agricultural land on lease.