Chennai: Campaign Picks Up Momentum Despite Soaring Heat

 Chennai: All the three major coalitions vying for the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the April 19 elections in the State ramped up their campaign on Friday with candidates sweating it out in the hot sun by going around in open jeeps to seek people’s support while workers walked the streets going door to door distributing pamphlets and star campaigners started descending on the field to solicit support for their candidates.

The three constituencies in Chennai, besides the neighbouring seats of Sriperumbudur and Thiruallur, saw BJP State President K Annamalai canvassing votes for his party and coalition candidates, taking a break from own constituency of Coimbatore, where DMK’s star campaigner and deputy general secretary Kanimozhi Karunanidhi launched a campaign for .her party candidate Ganapathy Rajkumar, leaving behind her Thoothukudi constituency.

Annamalai said that the DMK was campaigning as though they were facing a State Assembly poll and the AIADMK was approaching the people as though it was a local body election and added that the country had developed under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its economy climbing to the fifth spot from the 11th position.

Telling the voters to choose the NDA candidates as it would help Modi to return to power which was essential for the development of the economy, which alone would ensure more income for the people, he accused the DMK government of committing several mistakes in their 33 month rule like borrowing about Rs 3.5 lakh crore and taking the States’ debt burden to Rs 8.5 lakh crore, the highest in the country.

Accusing the DMK nominee for Sriperumbudur T R Baalu of amassing huge amounts of wealth, he asked the people to vote for NDA candidate Venugopal, belonging to the Tamil Maanila Congress, in the ‘Bicyle’ symbol.

In North Chennai, where he was canvassing for his party candidate R C Paul Kanagaraj, he said the DMK rival Kalanidhi Veerasamy had declared that he had assets worth Rs 31 crore while his family possessed wealth to the tune of Rs 2,923 crore.

Referring to Kanimozhi’s allegation that Annamalai was against reservation, he said that he was indeed opposed to the political quota system.

AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami was at Kanchipuram on Friday addressing a mammoth election rally. He had been canvassing for his party candidates in various places, launching a scathing attack on the DMK government, for the past few days after DMK President and Chief Minister M K Stalin started his whirlwind tour of the State.

While State Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin had already hit the streets addressing voters from various points, more star campaigners are now seeking votes for their party candidates. At Singanallur in Coimbatore, when a band of drummers played music to welcome Kanimozhi, a greying woman DMK worker draped in a sari with the ‘rising sun’ image printed on the border danced to the drum beats, drawing everyone’s attention. The video of the dancing woman went viral on social media, too.

Similarly, most party workers enthusiastically participated in the campaigns in all the constituencies unmindful of the soaring heat wave. The candidates and other campaigners normally start their work by 7 am and close it around 11 am, only to resume it all after 4 pm and go on till 10 pm.

The candidates are keen that they cover the entire constituency by at least driving through the streets and wishing the voters from their open jeeps, while the grassroots workers ensure that the pamphlets are delivered at all homes.

In South Chennai, where BJP’s Tamilisai Sondararajan is pitted against sitting DMK MP Tamilachi Thangapandian, both the candidates vied with each other in telling the people that voting for them alone will be beneficial to the constituency. Both claimed that they could do more to the constituency than the rival by going to Parliament.

While the BJP campaigners tell people that voting in favour of their candidates would make their representative sit in the treasury benches in Parliament, the DMK is entreating with the people to help bring the INDIA coalition to power and defeat the BJP, while the AIADMK campaigners say that their candidates were concerned only about the people and their welfare and not about who rules.