CHENNAI: DMK president and Chief Minister M K Stalin is set to launch the party’s membership drive, Oraniyil Tamil Nadu, on July 1, with an ambitious target of enrolling 2 crore members, as per Finance Minister and senior party leader Thangam Thennarasu.
According to sources, once launched, the membership drive is expected to continue for about five to six weeks.
Elaborating on the exercise, Thennarasu while addressing newspersons at the party’s headquarters Anna Arivalayam on Tuesday said, “On July 2, the day after the launch, district secretaries, ministers, MPs, and MLAs will hold rallies across all districts to inaugurate the membership enrolment camps.”
“On July 3, the party’s booth-level agents, digital agents, and cadre from the youth and women’s wings, along with branch functionaries, will begin visiting every household under their respective booths and spend 10 minutes at each house explaining the government’s achievements and importance of the party’s ideologies in protecting Tamil language, soil and dignity,” he explained.
Members can be enrolled both digitally through a mobile application and manually through membership forms.
Sources further said a detailed road map for implementation of Oraniyil Tamil Nadu and Udanpirappe Vaa has been crafted and is being overseen by the Populus Empowerment Network (PEN), which is handling the ruling party’s campaign strategies.
Udanpirappe Vaa is the initiative under which Stalin has been holding one-on-one meetings with party functionaries from each Assembly constituency, starting June 12. So far, he has completed meetings with functionaries from 18 constituencies over six separate days, spending no less than three hours each day.
Sources added these two initiatives have taken shape through the collaborative efforts of PEN, which is overseeing their execution on the whole, with Rishi Raj Singh’s I-PAC, and Robbin Sharma’s ShowTime Consulting.
Initially, some criticisms arose over the presence of several DMK headquarters office-bearers during Stalin’s one-on-one meetings with party functionaries.
It is said based on feedback from PEN, Stalin decided to exclude all other office-bearers except party’s organisation secretary R S Bharathi and the person in-charge of the region, under which the particular assembly constituency falls.
Bharathi and the leaders in-charge are being retained to take note of complaints concerning district-level party leaders, ministers and MLAs, as well as suggestions related to election works.
Thennarasu said, “There are around 2 crore households in the state. We are determined to achieve 100% outreach. Our party cadre will directly visit every household, cutting across political lines. Our target is to enrol at least 30% of voters in every booth as members.”
Sources said a dashboard system has been set up by PEN to enable Stalin to monitor real-time updates from the ground for every booth, with the option to filter by Assembly constituencies and districts.