While the cadre of dravidian and other parties in the State use dhotis with the colours of their party flags in the borders to show to which outfit they belong to, the Kejriwal-led party has issued a diktat to its workers to wear a cap carrying the name of the party, Aam Aadmi Party, and its symbol, broom.
While the Aam Aadmi Party men freely roam around with the cap which has the name of the party in Hindi, the Tamil Nadu team was in a piquant situation as many people are not conversant in Hindi. So, as a solution to this issue, the State unit started use the name in Tamil on the caps.
But, in Coimbatore, where the AAP has over 12,000 registered members, there is a huge demand for the party caps. So far, the Coimbatore unit was sourcing the wear from places like Chennai, Tirupur and Erode.
Now with the request for the caps rising day by day, the local unit is now forced to procure in Coimbatore itself and distribute them to workers.
“At present, we buy the caps from Chennai at a cost of `5 per piece. The demand spiralled after the party advised all the members to wear it without fail,” said Karuppasamy, AAP’s election campaign manager in Coimbatore and added that 5,000 new caps would arrive shortly from Chennai.
While the cap is bought at `5 from the maker, the party is selling it to members at `10.
The cap is a must wear gadget in official meetings of the party. Apart from khadar, caps made of cotton and other mixed materials are also used by members.
At present the cap has the party name printed in English (Aam Admi Party or I am Aam Admi) and Tamil on the other side (Aam Admi Katchi). Similarly, the name has been changed to Malayalam in Kerala.