CHENNAI: The high wattage campaign for the April 23 elections to the Tamil Nadu Assembly that rocked the entire State for more than a month with many national leaders canvassing for their allies and party colleagues came to a close with top honchos of the main parties raking up a plethora of issues concerning the State and the people till the last minute on Tuesday evening.
Actually, the State shifted into election mode much ahead of the Election Commission of India officially notifying the poll dates momentum picked up once the announcement came.
The key slogan of the DMK, which is facing the polls with over a score of allies backing it, was Tamil Nadu versus North India, while the main rival, the AIADMK-NDA coalition that has about 10 parties in their camp, targeted the ruling party and the party president and Chief Minister M K Stalin all through the campaign.
The third force that emerged in this election, the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) led by actor Vijay, also attacked only the DMK and Stalin, sparing the BJP of any acrimonious onslaught though the fledgling party had declared it as a ‘policy enemy.’ In fact, the TVK tried to project the entire electoral battle as one between the ruling DMK and TVK, discounting the DMK’s claim that its fight was against the NDA.
A plethora of national leaders like former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, former Bihar deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Tejaswi Yadav, shared space in the campaign vehicle of Stalin, who spearheaded the outing of the DMK-led coalition, the Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA), while the rival coalition saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah making multiple visits to the State and addressing many meetings to canvas votes for the BJP.
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge had come to seek votes in favour of their party candidates – there were 28 of them this time – and many BJP leaders were in the State to seek support for their 27 candidates, lending an acrimonious slant to the hustings that even otherwise saw the spewing of fire and brimstone.
So an eerie quietude descended the State after over a month of cacophony on Tuesday evening when all liquor vends were closed for three days and the top political parties diverting their attention to the arrangements for the polling like deploying booth agents, while the police intensified their patrol to prevent distribution of cash and gifts to voters.
In between the hectic campaigning, Stalin and the DMK had to devote time to fight against the Union BJP government’s move to pass the Constitutional amendment Bill to bring in delimitation of constituencies. Though the Bill was defeated in Parliament, the DMK won by infusing an election flavor to the issue to reiterate its slogan of ‘Tamil Nadu versus North India’ to drive home the point that it was fighting a battle to save Tamil Nadu, Tamil language and culture and not against any party alone.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
