CHENNAI: Following the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court’s interim injunction, the DMK has updated its ‘Oraniyil Tamil Nadu’ mobile application, enabling the cadre to carry out the membership enrolment under its ongoing ‘Oraniyil Tamil Nadu’ campaign, without asking for verification of phone numbers through OTP.
“The fear of our enemies is our victory. Dravidian Model 2.0 government will be formed in 2026,” the party’s organising secretary R S Bharathi said in a statement in response to opposition party claiming victory over the high court’s directions.
The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Monday passed the interim order, directing DMK not to carry out OTP-based verification to enrol members. The order was based on a PIL that raised concerns over data protection and privacy.
“The nervousness of AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami to block our party’s membership drive shows just how far the campaign has reached among the people,” he said.
However, Bharathi said the court refused to ban the membership drive but allowed it to carry it out without OTP.
He said people are coming forward to enrol as members themselves due to the welfare schemes and good governance of the Dravidian Model government.
“OTP was just a procedure for confirmation. However, respecting the court’s direction, the party cadre have been asked to go ahead with the membership drive through alternative procedure.”
In revised guidelines to the party cadre, he said although OTP verification is not needed in the mobile application used for the campaign, collecting of mobile numbers and ensuring them that they are not wrong are important.