He emerges from atop his campaign vehicle. With a dash of ash on his forehead and a microphone around his face, he stands alone in his vehicle, with speakers fitted on the four corners to convince the Tamil Nadu electorate that he is the best choice to lead the state. He turns around every side to take a look at the crowd as he tries to justify that he is a man from a humble village background.
And all of a sudden, his voice crumbles and he breaks down emotionally. “A mother occupies a high position in society, whether she was rich or poor, and everyone who denigrated women would be punished by God. He is also born to a mother. But he is insulting and humiliating mothers. Such people should be punished,” a choked-up Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami appeals to the voters.
The AIADMK women's wing went to protest against DMK MP A. Raja’s controversial comments against Palaniswami. His effigy was burnt. The chief minister, who had went around telling people about his government’s achievements, from then on began playing the victim card.
Words of sympathy flowed down for Palaniswami on social media. A day later, all the brownie points earned by Palaniswami, by shedding tears broke into pieces as his party coordinator and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam busted the strategy behind the Vanniyar reservation quota in an interview to an English daily.
“The internal reservation given to the Vanniyars is temporary. It will be subject to change after the caste census comes out,” Panneerselvam said, putting Palaniswami in a fix. Hours later, Dr S. Ramadoss, leader of PMK, the AIADMK’s only regional ally, rang up Palaniswami, asking him to clarify.
“I spoke with the chief minister. The reservation is permanent. After caste-wise census, the percentage in reservation quota for Vanniyars will only go up,” Ramadoss said. Law Minister C. Ve. Shanmugam, who hails from the Vanniyar belt in north Tamil Nadu, also came to bat for Ramadoss. And then came Prime Minister Narendra Modi, once again voicing support to the chief minister, saying, “the DMK is against women's rights”.
At a time when Palaniswami is out there to face the toughest challenge in his five-decade-long political career—to convince the people of the state about his leadership—there is no senior leader from the party who would stay by his side and campaign along with him. For the past two weeks, since the election dates were announced, Palaniswami has been touring the state non-stop, talking in at least 20 to 25 places every day to lure the voters. Unlike Jayalalithaa, Palaniswami’s campaign, though he turns emotional, has not earned him any sympathy. “He is our chief minister. He is from a humble background. He is accessible. But he doesn’t have Amma’s charisma,” Minister Kadambur C. Raju told THE WEEK during an election rally in Kovilpatti.
Not just Raju, every minister in the party does not look up at Palaniswami as they used to look at Jayalalithaa. “He is our chief minister candidate. When Amma died, we did not know what next. But he has helped us steer the government for four years. But there can be no one to match our Amma,” tells Minister R.B. Udhayakumar, who is seeking re-election from Thirumangalam constituency near Madurai.
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Palaniswami, though looked at as the leader of the AIADMK and the chief minister candidate of the AIADMK, seems to be fighting a lone battle to ensure that he continues to stay in power. In fact, his own cabinet colleagues who normally would have come out to campaign across the state, chose to stay back in their own constituencies.
Incidentally, ministers S.P. Velumani and P. Thangamani, who are popularly known as ‘bell boys’ in the Tamil Nadu political circles, have not come out of their constituencies to campaign for the party as a whole. Sources say that the duo managed to get close to 72 constituencies for their loyalists in the party in the western districts, when Palaniswami himself had his loyalists fielded only in seven constituencies around Salem. Again, Panneerselvam, who is the coordinator the party, got only one ticket for his loyalist to contest from the Sholavandhan constituency. Apart from this, the party could not control incumbent MLAs like Thoppu Venkatchalam, who is contesting as an independent candidate as he was denied a ticket to contest.
