DMK pulls out all stops to win poll

Chennai: With less than a week remaining for RK Nagar bypoll, the DMK has shifted to top gear with party working president M.K. Stalin himself starting his ‘Namakku Naamey’ style campaign throughout the constituency.

As pollsters see this contest limited to the DMK nominee N. Marudhu Ganesh and AIADMK (Purathcithalaivi Amma) candidate E. Madhusudhanan, Stalin has stepped up attacks on former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, calling his faction as ‘sand mafia’ and questioning his silence about treatment to Jayalalithaa while he (OPS) was the Chief Minister.

After a sluggish start, raising speculations if the DMK is indirectly helping Panneerselvam to gain an upper hand, the DMK appears to be going all out for victory following apprehensions over the intentions of Panneerselvam if he emerged successful in RK Nagar.

In the RK Nagar poll campaign, Panneerselvam is confining his attacks to AIADMK (Amma) candidate T.T.V. Dinakaran and his family. He is refraining from attacking Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisami, raising doubts if he would join hands with DMK at him to eject the Sasikala- TTV element from the AIADMK.

A section of the vernacular media supporting the AIADMK has come out with reports of patch up between the two factions after the RK Nagar bypoll. Such a move is unlikely to help the DMK which is looking for a vertical split in the ruling party that could trigger the state government’s fall and mid-term Assembly elections.

DMK spokesperson Thamizhan Prasanna said the party’s election campaign has picked up after Stalin’s ‘Namakku Naamey’ style meeting with the people from Tuesday. He strongly denied that his party is soft on Panneerselvam and said both the factions have similar traits of corruption.

“Support for Madhusudhanan is not due to DMK’s indirect backing. He is getting more support because he is a local man well known to the people in the area. We started the campaign slowly and it has reached its peak this week. Every DMK functionary has been assigned different areas in the constituency and asked to carry out a door-to-door campaign. We will certainly defeat both the AIADMK factions”, he said.

During the last few days, Stalin is attacking both the OPS and EPS factions in equal doses. He is also attacking both the factions on the alleged mystery in Jayalalithaa’s death and asserting that the DMK would set up an inquiry commission to question Panneerselvam as well as AIADMK (Amma) general secretary V.K. Sasikala.