Jayalalithaa sounds bugle for 2014 elections
Jaya urges party cadres to ensure complete win, so that UPA could be ousted from the Centre.
Chennai: Exhorting her supporters to ensure a 'complete win' for the party so that the UPA could be ousted from the Centre, AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa on Thursday said the party would fight the 2014 Parliament poll on the plank of peace, prosperity and progress.
“The train called AIADMK is now Fort St.George Express (state secretariat). You should make it reach the Red Fort,” she told the packed audience at the AIADMK executive and general council held at suburban Vanagaram.
Slamming the Congress-led UPA government, Jayalalithaa said it had been repeatedly taking revenge on the TN people by a 'step-motherly' attitude because they gave the AIADMK a strong mandate in the 2011 assembly elections. There were several such instances, such as the ‘struggles’ in getting the Cauvery final award notified in the Central gazette, she said.
The UPA regime deserved to be “thrown out” and there was a need for a government that treated TN as a “partner” in national growth and one that extends a hand of friendship.
“This (UPA) is an anti-people government and the gifts it has given to the people of the country are unprecedented corruption, soaring inflation, family politics, threats from neighbours and repeated hike in prices of petrol and diesel.”
India under the UPA was unable to handle foreign affairs, so much so that not only the big countries like China but even the small ones like Sri Lanka and Myanmar were intimidating the country and a “weak” government was unable to handle the situation, she alleged.
“A strong leadership is required at the Centre. A powerful Central government will ensure that such issues do not arise,” she said, adding, “And so the party has to stand alone and win all 40 seats. That is our aim.”
When reporters asked her later about her party members projecting her as a PM candidate, Jayalalithaa said, “The cadres have expressed their feelings,” and she had nothing to say.
Sale of application forms for aspiring Lok Sabha poll contestants begins
Chennai: A large number of AIADMK members including ministers who descended upon party headquarters here have filed applications seeking party supremo and chief minister Jayalalithaa to contest in the Lok Sabha seats falling in their home districts.
A large number of party members turned up about a couple of hours ahead of the scheduled 10 am when the sale of application forms began at the AIADMK headquarters here on Thursday. Many who had come from various districts had filed the papers on behalf of their party supremo.
State ministers including O. Panneerselvam, K.P. Munusamy, Natham R. Viswanathan, Vaithilingam, B. Valarmathi, M.C. Sampath and Poonachi had submitted the forms on behalf of Jayalalithaa.
The election application forms for candidates would be sold till December 27 priced at Rs 25,000 each. Jayalalithaa had already urged her cadres to strive for victory in all the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state and the lone seat in Puducherry.