AIADMK workers maintain low profile

AIADMK workers maintain low profile

Julie.Mariappan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:10.04.2021

AIADMK partymen have been maintaining a low profile, resigned to the long wait for the assembly election results. In the last three days, chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami chose to remain mostly indoors in Salem, meeting only a few ministers andcandidates, sources said, adding he was down with acute laryngitis. In an unprecedented move, the party took on the bureaucracy, urging the election commission on Thursday to transfer four senior police officers from the western region, alleging they sided with the opposition DMK during the election.

“The CM is disappointed that grassroot workers did not work as hard as expected in the run-up to the polls. Many functionaries did not campaign like they used to when Amma (J Jayalalithaa) was there. Her presence intimidated many,” said a senior leader. Palaniswami is scheduled to return to Chennai on Saturday evening, after his visit to Theni to condole the death of deputy CM O Panneerselvam’s mother-in-law. Leaders are expected to visit the CM at his Greenways Road residence. Meanwhile, Palaniswami took his second dose of Covid vaccination at the Salem government hospital and urged people to follow Covid norms and the standard operating procedures.

Revenue minister R B Udhayakumar said AIADMK cadres were in an upbeat mood, confident that the party would form a government for the third consecutive term. “It is history repeating itself. In 1977, the DMK went about organising a victory function. But MGR (AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran) won the assembly election that year,” said the minister.

A section in the AIADMK, however, say that the DMK’s anti-BJP narrative in the final stages of the campaign may have influenced the “swinging voters” and the AIADMK leadership failed to counter it effectively.

(With inputs from Padmini Sivarajah)