In an election where the lead actors are a former film heroine and an octogenarian scriptwriter, with a supporting cast of action heroes and comedians, it’s little wonder that the scenes seem straight out of a movie.

So, as the Tamil Nadu poll plot unfolds live on the streets and on party-affiliated television channels, here’s an Oscar-style award list based on the showing so far:

Best Dialogue

And the prize goes to... who other than the wheelchair-bound M. Karunanidhi, who once breathed life into celluloid roles with his dialogues and even now keeps writing scripts for flop movies watched only by committed party cadres?

He wins thanks to his defiant line on poll sops: “Freebies will continue as long as the last of the poor is there in Tamil Nadu.”

That may not quite equal the line he penned for Manohara decades ago — “Enough of this patience; rise in revolt my son (spoken by a queen as she incites son Sivaji Ganesan to take on his father’s scheming concubine).” But then, a chief minister can hardly ask voters to eschew patience and throw out their ruler, can he?

After Ilaignan, for which Karunanidhi wrote the script, bombed in January this year, the patriarch has another film, Ponnar Shankar, awaiting release on April 15. But the DMK boss will be more anxious about the blockbuster to be shot on April 13 at the booths and released on May 13.

In contrast to him, the dialogues of Our Lady of Poes Garden (and occasionally Kodanadu in the Nilgiris) have been sounding stale from Day Two as she mouths the same lines at every campaign stop.

“There is no governance here, only misrule by a gang of thugs,” was the closest Jayalalithaa came to evoking instant applause.

Best Special Effects

What Amma has lacked in words, she has provided in spectacle. Jayalalithaa emerges through the roof of her campaign van on a hydraulic lift that takes her up and down, exciting her rural audience.

“She appears like Goddess Lakshmi on a lotus,” whispered an admirer at Srirangam, the AIADMK chief’s constituency.

Best ‘Punch’ Line

The thrills, aptly, have been provided by Jayalalithaa’s ally Vijayakanth, the Great Action Hero whose fans call him “Captain” and who regularly thumps on-screen villains with his fists and feet.

This time, his blows were directed at one of his own party candidates who had shown the temerity to correct him in full public glare.

But who doesn’t know that being a hero means never having to say “sorry”? So, Vijayakanth came up with this “punch” line: “Those who get hit by me become maharajas.”

Keep a close eye on the victim in the coming days to see if the prophecy comes true.

Captain’s supporters, though, have accused the Opposition’s TV channels of using creative editing and graphics to embarrass their leader. Does that qualify as an award for best editing?

Best Comedian

Who else but Vadivelu, whom the DMK fielded to take on Vijayakanth? Since Vijayakanth’s fans had attacked Vadivelu’s house two years ago, the comedian is only too happy to give it back, at least verbally.

“Don’t blame Vijayakanth for his slip, because it is the whisky he drinks that is doing all the talking and punching,” Vadivelu says.

“Those who pilot ships that sail on water are called ‘captain’; not those who always float in water (a Tamil euphemism for being drunk),” he adds.

Vadivelu’s retort easily beats the feeble rejoinder from fellow comedian and friend-turned-foe Singamuthu, who said: “Vadivelu has no right to talk about drinking; I know how many bottles he empties in a day.”

Best, er, Worst Villain

None other than the Election Commission, for ruling that the money spent on banners, posters, flags and cut-outs would be calculated as part of the candidate’s election expenditure. Since the upper limit for an Assembly election is just Rs 16 lakh, the diktat has at one stroke turned this election into the least colourful ever.

The move has provoked Karunanidhi and his two sons into hurling some of the most colourful dialogues at the poll commission and dragging it to court. The chief minister even alleged that the arm-twisting reminded him of the Emergency!

Oops, with the Congress as his main ally, this dialogue cannot win him any prizes.

Best Tear-jerker

If it’s Tamil cinema, can emotional scenes be far behind? The best came when Karunanidhi “rediscovered his roots” by choosing to contest from Tiruvarur town, his childhood home.

“This is where I played, studied and got politically inspired,” was how he tried to strike a chord with the audience, which lapped it all up.

Best Ms Know-all

And the winner is... Khushboo.

The lady, who has a temple and a type of idli named after her, seems all mixed up. The Mumbai-born actress, married to a Tamil director, has the audience in splits with her stilted, difficult-to-follow Tamil pronunciation as she parrots her lines.

“In science, it is Newton’s formula; in cinema, it is Rajni formula; and in elections, it is Alagiri formula,” she said the other day. Got it?

Whether that is the winning formula will be known only on Big Friday, May 13.