CHENNAI: Three days after declaring that the AIADMK is not in alliance with the BJP, the Dravidian party on Wednesday gave oral instructions to the senior functionaries of the party not to make ‘personal attacks’ and not to respond to BJP state president K Annamalai’s statements anymore through social media or through wall posters.
A senior leader of AIADMK confirmed this advice has been given to senior functionaries since their anger was only against those who continued to give pinpricks and not against BJP. Another functionary said the advice could have been given to the functionaries because it might have led to criticising the top leaders of the saffron party since that is not the intention of the AIADMK leadership.
Meanwhile, another senior functionary of AIADMK said, the BJP leaders in New Delhi are trying to contact AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami as a damage control exercise. On Wednesday, as speculations about the ‘advice’ given to AIADMK functionaries spread, the party’s sympathisers started reacting to it on social media.
On Facebook, a functionary said, “It is better to return to Facebook after the Lok Sabha elections are over, since all our efforts will go in vain, why should we toil?” Supporting this stand, another IT wing functionary of AIADMK said if the AIADMK leadership did not consider the views of the grassroots-level workers and functionaries, the party would face defeat in the LS polls.”
However, AIADMK IT Wing secretary (Madurai Zone) Raj Satyen on Wednesday said, “There is nothing to fear. AIADMK leadership did not impose any restrictions on us. Our leadership only wishes that we continue to give a befitting reply to whoever insults our leader and ideologies,” adding that the reports about oral instructions are wrong.