The attire, activities and the ‘body works’ of the seven-member campaign brigade of the AIADMK will surely catch the attention of passers-by on any road.
The self-styled campaign brigade that was started by Muruku Arumugam from Karur and Giri of Pollachi — both are dead now — in the early 1960’s, has now become a full-fledged team with seven primary members of the party, including Jeyaraman, Cycle Govindan, Vadivelu (50) from Tiruppur, Boopathi (50) from Erode, MGR Murugan (45) from Selam, Jallal (60) from Vaniyambadi, Vellore and GR Mohan (67) from Virudhunagar.
All the seven were in full action during the recent campaign meeting of the party supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa at Dindigul and Theni.
In a chat at the venue, the team members, while sharing their experiences and their daily schedule that starts from 7 in the morning and ends by 8 in the night, said, “Though we do different things to draw the attention of the people, our aim is the same. We won’t rest until Jayalalithaa becomes the Prime Minister.”
Despite financial constraints, they use different modes of transport, including cycle, to carry out their campaign.
Cycle Govindan (38) from Namakkal, clad in a green dress with party symbol and Jaya picture embossed on it an, wears an iron cap weighing 5 kg with ‘Two Leaves’ symbol. Govindan, a daily wager, who was impressed by MGR in ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’, took up the mission of propagating the party’s ideology among the voters since then. Jeyaraman (63) of Periyakulam, another die-hard MGR fan, has undertaken the job of spreading achievements of AIADMK government in the last three years.
Jeyaraman, who got an auto for his exemplary service was gifted an auto by Jayalalaithaa. He has turned the auto into a ‘information express’ by listing the welfare schemes introduced by the Chief Minister in the last three years.
Jallal (60), who has tatooed the party symbol on his body, said that party service was above family for him. “I joined the campaign work even though my wife was in hospital. Right now two important goals are AIADMK should win all the 40 constituencies and Jayalalithaa should become the PM,” said Jallal. MGR Mohan, who has styled the party symbol on his head to attract the crowd, said that the party cadre provide accommodation and food to them wherever they go.
Explaining the style of their campaign, Mohan said the moment the team reaches a place MGR songs would be played first. And that would make our job easier as a huge crowd turns up. Then the team would get into action and talk about Jayalalithaa’s achievements.