NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, on Wednesday evening heli-hopped across three districts in western Tamil Nadu - Krishnagiri, Salem and Coimbatore - in a span of less than six hours addressing mammoth gatherings, promising to weave magic in 60 months if elected to occupy the top elected post in the country in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
If in Coimbatore he targeted the first-time voters and youth below 28 years, soon after his surprise meeting with young Tamil film hero Vijay, who has a sizeable youth following, in Salem he promised fast-paced development “something which the Congress had not done for 60 years”. And in Krishnagiri, from where he kick-started the final phase of his Lok Sabha campaign in Tamil Nadu, he carefully chose the BJP’s Muslim face in the southern State Munaveri Begum to translate his speech from Hindi to Tamil. Unveiling larger plans of retaining the BJP’s rainbow alliance in the State for the 2016 Assembly elections, Modi continued to attack not just his national rival, the Congress, but also the principal Dravidian parties - the DMK and AIADMK.
In a politically strategic move, Modi’s campaign managers had ensured that each of the party’s key allies, who mattered in the western region, was represented at the different venues for electioneering.
While in Krishnagiri, leaders of the PMK, which has a sway over a section of Vanniyar community voters in that region shared the dais with Modi, in Salem from where the DMDK star candidate L K Sudheesh is trying his luck, the party founder actor Vijayakant and his wife Premalatha were on stage. Likewise, in Coimbatore, the Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi leader E R Eswaran, who is contesting from Pollachi.