State president and the national general secretary of the Republican Party of India (RPI) C K Tamizharasan (who is also the MLA of K V Kuppam) in a press meet here on Wednesday said, going by the overwhelming response received by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa during her poll campaigns in the various constituencies so far, the winning prospects for the ruling AIADMK in all the 40 constituencies in the State looked bright.
His party would campaign for the AIADMK’s victory Tamizharasan said and added that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was headed for a role in national politics.
Further Tamizharasan said that while other fronts and parties were still uncertain over the alliances and choice of candidates, the AIADMK had taken the lead in announcing candidates and moving ahead with a well-planned poll campaign strategy and so far 12 constituencies had been covered by the Chief Minister.
This is an added advantage for the party and Tamizharasan hoped that the AIADMK would sweep the polls with a clear mandate.
His party had also been organising workers’ meetings in Vellore and Arakkonam constituencies, to support the AIADMK candidates and the response was good, he said.
Launching a scathing attack on DMK for “not doing anything good for the downtrodden in the past 14 years when it had shared power with the ruling Congress government at the Centre”, Tamizharasan said that most of the Muslim leaders had confessed that the DMK had done nothing for the minority communities and they also complained that the DMK had split the communities.
The AIADMK on the other hand has been taking the right step in protecting the interests of the downtrodden, he pointed out. When asked whether the Communist parties that had parted ways with the AIADMK could disturb the vote bank of AIADMK, he replied that no party could disturb the AIADMK.
Underlining the need for changes in the way the elections were being conducted, Tamizharasan said that voting should be made mandatory on the lines of how the Election Commission was promoting the NOTA option among the electorates.
He felt that it was unfair to fix the limit of expenditure for candidates contesting for MP post as 70 lakh. “How could poor people contest elections?” he questioned and added, “There should be a referendum on the manner in which elections should be conducted.”