While other major parties are still busy clinching deals with alliance partners and taking time to announce the candidates, the ruling AIADMK has taken the lead to go ahead with the ground work, to pep up the partymen before garnering the support of electorate.
The AIADMK party was the first one to have announced the candidate for Vellore by fielding senior advocate P Senguttuvan to contest from the Vellore Parliamentary constituency, well ahead of other parties.
While the AIADMK has not launched a full-fledged electioneering campaign, the candidate Senguttuvan has been making courtesy calls on the party bigwigs to seek their cooperation and support as part of the protocol. There is a mood of buoyancy among the cadre, which is quite visible as they see brighter prospects for their party, given the fact that the DMK has allocated the Vellore constituency to its alliance partner IUML.
The second factor that has further boosted the morale of the cadre here is that the IUML would not be able to contest with the ‘Rising Sun’ symbol this time. The cadre is aware that this has lowered the spirit of the local DMK unit, which was disappointed and unhappy with the decision of their party high command for having handed over the Vellore constituency to the IUML.
The AIADMK camp feels that this would be an added advantage for the party candidate, who hails from the Mudaliar community, which is considered to be one of the most dominant communities in the constituency.
The AIADMK high command has also nominated the Local Administration Minister K C Veeramani as the poll manager for the constituency, who would be assisted by K A K Mukhil and former MLA Kalaiselvi,who is the deputy secretary of the State women’s wing of the party. The first consultative meeting of the party seniors, MLAs, local body leaders and other functionaries was also held on Thursday, the meet was chaired by Minister Veeramani.
The meeting resolved to work hard to ensure victory for Senguttuvan while pledging to make the party supremo J Jayalalithaa the Prime Minister of India.
Veeramani made a fervent appeal to the partymen to work unitedly to ensure victory for the party candidate in the elections by defeating the DMK, that had supported the Congress at the Centre. He pointed out that they should be no slackness on the part of the AIADMK functionaries and cadre in this regard. He said similar consultative meetings would be held in six Assembly segments that come under the Vellore Parliamentary constituency, to motivate the partymen and also to plan the electioneering work.