The AIADMK reached out to voters in an interesting manner on Wednesday with party general secretary and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa introducing 53 party candidates 46 from Tamil Nadu’s Salem, Coimbatore, Erode, Namakkal, Tirupur and Nilgiris, and 7 from Kerala for the May 16 Assembly election in one go at a mammoth poll rally in Salem.
All the 53 candidates greeted their leader and the audience from a separate gallery when their names were called out by her.
Jayalalithaa’s rallies have been planned in such a way that she has been able to introduce 17 to 18 candidates contesting from two or three districts in each of her rallies. She is scheduled to address 15 campaign rallies, and the meeting held at Salem was sixth in the series.
Unleashing a scathing attack on her bête noir M Karunanidhi of the DMK, Jayalalithaa said he was leading a party of goons while AIADMK was a party of friends.
“This is not an allegation that has been made by me against Karunanidhi or the DMK. Karunanidhi himself declared that his was a party of goons, while addressing the general council meeting of the DMK. It has been widely reported in all newspapers and I am just reading it out for you,” Jayalalithaa told the huge gathering.
Amma, as Jayalalithaa is fondly called by party cadre and the people of the State, read out official data from the Home Department to drive home the point that the law and order situation in her regime was fully under control, while things were very poor during the erstwhile DMK regime.
“The period from 2006 to 2011 saw unprecedented increase in the number of robberies, murder and mayhem. There were hundreds of cases of land belonging to poor people and common men being taken over forcibly by the Karunanidhi clan and senior DMK functionaries with the connivance of the police,” charged Jayalalithaa.
When she asked the audience whether they would vote for a party like the DMK, the crowd responded with a resounding “Illai” (no).
Jayalalithaa accused the DMK of spreading canards about her and her Government because of its fear of losing the election.
In spite of the scorching heat in Salem, the crowd which had come from all the six districts seemed to enjoy the spirited speech by Amma which had been peppered with anecdotes and criticism of the DMK.
Jayalalithaa said Karunanidhi himself had accepted the charge that his party cadre interfered in the affairs of the police. “There were instances when police stations were ruled by remote control from the offices and homes of DMK leaders. Can you point out one stance of any AIADMK leader putting pressure on the police,” asked Jayalalithaa, to which the crowd again roared back a categorical “no”.