Chennai: With the State Assembly elections just a few months away, the political scene in Tamil Nadu is already abuzz with animatedly myriad voices and predictions about alliance configurations and electoral outcomes. Against this background, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which has been starved of power for almost a decade is girding up its loins to win the people’s mandate. It is just waiting for the Pongal festivities to settle down before it goes about campaigning hammer and tongs. Preparatory works are on in that party for a more spirited campaign.
The two prominent Dravidian majors – DMK and AIADMK – represented by Stalin, president of the former, and Edappadi K Palaniswami, Chief Minister and joint coordinator of the latter are crisscrossing the state meeting people. At the other end of the spectrum, new leaders such as actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan, president of the Makkal Needhi Maiam, and others are chipping in with their quota of contributions to the electoral campaign scenario.
The DMK, which is now going to the election for the first time without its long-time leader the late M Karunanidhi's shrewd and shining eloquence and stewardship, has, in a deviation from its over seven-decade-old tradition, teamed up with political strategist Prashant Kishor’s Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) and accordingly, infused its campaign-style with innovation and energy.
The DMK has drawn up a four-phase campaign strategy that has the trappings of a massive and magnificent gala.
In the first phase, it has formulated a campaign tour plan for Tiruchi with a catching and screaming caption: ‘Stalin comes calling’. (‘Stalin varukiraar’). A big public conference on the G Corner Grounds in that city has been planned, in which Stalin will be seen rubbing shoulders and joining hands with the leaders of allied parties. Campaign meetings covering small and big cities, which will be led by leaders at the second rung of the party and ‘family feast’ in which the seniormost leaders and veteran party members numbering over 7,000 will take part and discuss campaign strategies are the prominent items on the DMK’s mass campaign agenda.
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In the second phase, the opposition party will target the youth, women, and farmers and seek out their support.
In the third phase, it will go on a 35-day non-stop campaign trail, speaking to the voters at 15,000 places and also plans what was once called in Tamil ‘thinnai petchu’ (informal speech on the raised verandah of a house).
The fourth phase contains the release of the election manifesto and the conduct of special gorgeous public conferences.
As part of its power-recapturing agenda, the DMK, in fact, started its campaign four years ago when it had a dialogue with entrepreneurs, traders, youth, and women under a program christened as ‘namakku naamae’ (we for ourselves). Later, the program, modified as ‘namakku naamae 2.0,’ was taken further under the leadership of the party Youth Wing secretary and son of MK Stalin, Udhayanidhi Stalin, and covered the whole of Tamil Nadu, wooing the young voters.
Right now, the party’s second-rung leaders have been conducting campaign meetings captioned as ‘Stalin’s voice towards dawn.’ Moreover, the party is also holding gram sabha meetings with people all over the State with a clarion call, ‘we reject AIADMK,’ in which Stalin himself takes parts and hears the grievances of the women, in particular. In what looks like an assertion that the party has not lagged behind times and is in keeping with the spirit of tech-savvy youth, it exploits the new technology-driven social media which it has set reverberating with its affirmation, ‘We Reject AIADMK.’ In areas where the party is supposed to be not so strong, it has floated campaign slogans: ‘Stalin comes to create a new dawn’; ‘Stalin towards dawn.’
M Subramanian, former Chennai Mayor and current MLA from Saidapet, said the DMK’s victory is a foregone conclusion. Yet, unlike the last time, the party is more vigilant now, he said, adding that at present meetings are conducted and more are in the pipeline to convince the people of the wrongdoings of the AIADMK government.
Shyam, a veteran journalist, opined that though the government’s Pongal gift hamper scheme has gone down well with the people when it comes to elections, they will vote purely on the basis of their problems. In view of the possibility of vote bank splitting in the forthcoming Assembly elections, the DMK is more active than before engaged in relentless campaign work.
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At a recent meeting with grassroots-level party officer-bearers, Stalin called upon them to work more vigorously, saying that electoral victory is not a cakewalk and recalling that in the last elections, the party missed the victory chance only by a narrow margin.
So, accordingly, the DMK leaders and workers are striving hard now in the execution of a master plan. But the ultimate decision lies with the people. After all, they are the real masters, as C N Annadurai, one of the party founders, said once.
