DMK working president MK Stalin would meet functionaries, union to district secretary of 32 party districts for over a month starting from February 1. The exercise, which starts with Coimbatore, has been planned to streamline the functioning of the party units, DMK general secretary K Anbazhagan announced on Monday.  

Questions were raised about the electioneering efficacy of DMK organisations in RK Nagar, where the party was initially tipped to be a hot favourite and it had eventu

ally been reduced to a distant third in the final count. Even a few DMK insiders were unhappy with the high command reprimanding a few low-level functionaries and shielding the bigwigs in RK Nagar on receipt of a report tabled by party whip R Chakrapani led inquiry committee. 

Poor showing in the recently concluded by-election also raised doubts about party unit in other districts from where leaders had come and camped in the state capital for the bypoll. If party sources were to be believed, at least a dozen districts, mainly the ones in western, central and southern Tamil Nadu have been plagued by internal bickering. 

Salem, Erode, Namakkal, Tiruchy, Dharampuri, Coimbatore, Tuticorin, Tirunelveli, Theni and Tirupur have been tipped to be districts worst affected by infighting. There is a buzz in Anna Arivalayam that the review could be tell-all meetings, as was the case during the district secretaries meeting the party had convened immediately after RK Nagar rout, in which disillusionments of party functionaries could be discussed. 

The proposed review would be the first of its kind in which ‘leaders’ directly elicit views of lower-level functionaries like union secretaries, who found the bosses of Stalin’s DMK hardly accessible thus far. A palpable disconnect between the DMK leadership and grassroots was loudly discussed even in party inner circles.