Chennai, August 12 (BPNS)
The AIADMK which is gearing up for the rural local body polls in the nine new districts has decided to focus on the futile poll promises made by the DMK in the 2021 assembly elections. The two-day meeting of the AIADMK office-bearers in the districts to which the polls are to be held decided that the candidates be projected in the elections must have a clean track record.
Elections will be held in Kancheepuram, Chengelpettu, Villupuram, Tenkasi, Vellore, Tirupathur, Ranipet, Kallakurichi, and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu according to the Supreme court directive to conduct rural local body polls in these districts before September 15.
AIADMK wants a comeback after the crushing defeat it faced in the 2021 assembly elections and it will conduct an election campaign plugging all loopholes.
Both the former Chief Minister’s O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami had called upon the local level functionaries and addressed them. In this meeting held on Wednesday and Thursday, the leaders called upon the party cadres to highlight the failed poll promises of DMK in the 2021 assembly elections.
The AIADMK had held statewide meetings recently on the failure of the DMK to scrap the NEET examination which was one of the highlights of that party’s poll campaign for the 2021 assembly elections. The DMK has yet to fulfill its poll promises of Rs 1000 to homemakers, waiver of educational and jewel loans as well as reduction of fuel prices in the state.
However, the large presence of minority vote bank in the Northern Districts of Tamil Nadu has led to the failure of the AIADMK to win seats in the 2021 assembly elections given the party’s political alliance with the BJP. It could garner only 12 out of the 45 seats in the Northern districts of the state even as it had a political alliance with the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) that has a dominant presence in the area.
With the AIADMK continuing its alliance with the BJP in the state, the local party leaders are not enthused on the poll prospects in the minority-dominated districts of Vellore and Ranipet with the areas like Jolarpet, Tirupathur, Melvisharam, and Ranipet having a large presence of minority Muslims. The AIADMK local-level functionaries highlighted this factor before the senior leaders of the party.
The AIADMK as a policy will be highlighting the failures of the DMK government in the state since it has assumed office on May 7. The party is also waiting for the budget to be presented by the state finance minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan which has all the possibilities of subsidies being shifted to the targeted population.
Party leadership has also communicated to the cadres and local functionaries that the white paper presented by the DMK has to be countered at the ground level and that the failures of the previous DMK governments at the local level’s should be researched properly and presented before the public in the run-up to the elections, the date of which is yet to be announced.
R. Vaithalingam, AIADMK spokesperson while speaking to BPNS said, “We have conducted a few meetings with the party functionaries of the nine new districts where rural local body polls are to take place. Party will highlight the failure of the DMK government to fulfill the promises that it made during the run-up to 2021 elections, especially the failure on NEET which it knew fully well that it could not do anything and still promised the people that it would scrap the exam once it comes to power. This duplicity of that party, we will highlight.”
