CHENNAI: The populist schemes of the DMK government, distribution of money and the religion factor had helped DMK win the recent Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu, according to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India(Marxist).
This has come out in the review of the 15th Lok Sabha elections,by the Central Committee of the CPM at its meeting on June 20 and 21 in New Delhi. It felt that ``the DMK alliance succeeded because of the schemes such as Re. one per kg rice, free colour TV along with the Central government’s NREGA and higher minimum support prices. All these had positive impact.’’ According to the review, the party, which contested three seats as part of the electoral alliance with the AIADMK, felt that the state government employees, teachers, transport workers, electricity employees and their families had voted against the AIADMK based on their earlier experience with the Jayalalithaa government.
The party, however, admitted that “in all the three seats, the AIADMK worked seriously for CPM candidates.’’ The minorities have also voted for the DMK-Congress alliance.
The DMDK split the votes mainly of those opposed to the DMK-Congress alliance.
The CPM secured a total of 6,69,058 votes which is 2.2 per cent of the votes polled.