The district secretaries of the Rajini Makkal Mandram — the precursor of the proposed political party of actor Rajinikanth — will hold a week-long consultative meeting from October 5 to October 11 in Chennai to discuss the progress of its membership drive.
Deputy district secretaries and secretaries in charge of the youth wing, the women’s wing and the IT wing will also be participating in the meeting to take stock of the work carried out in the last 9 months by various organs of the outfit.
The Rajini Makkal Mandram (RMM) had appointed nearly 7,000 district-level and lower-level office-bearers to intensify the membership drive since Mr. Rajinikanth’s announcement on January 1 that the organisation would formalise and restructure both formal and informal fan clubs.
The actor had initially appointed Raju Mahalingam, who was previously with Lyca Productions, as RMM’s state secretary, and each office-bearer was reportedly given a target. However, sources in the RMM said they had been told that Mr. Mahalingam won’t be involved in the day-to-day activities of the organisation.
Dr. Ilavarasan, formerly associated with the DMDK, has assumed the role of RMM organisation secretary.
With the removal of district secretaries and restructuring of district units, there is a growing feeling within the organisation’s ranks that its functioning could be made more non-partisan and democratic.
Members of Mr. Rajinikanth’s fan clubs said that right from the beginning, they had been asked to achieve highly ambitious membership targets.
“The public are asking us if Thalaivar (Rajinikanth) is really serious about launching a party, and about the policies that he would support or resist. We are not able to respond to such queries because we do not know what Thalaivar has in his mind,” said a fan club member.
However, some lower-level office-bearers contended that this wasn’t an insurmountable problem. “For so long, we have been asking Thalaivar why he hasn’t entered politics. Now that he has decided to take the political plunge, he has an expectation that we should do what is asked of us. It is only fair,” said an office-bearer.
‘No announcement’
Contrary to New Justice Party leader and former AIADMK MP A.C. Shanmugam’s statement on Monday that Mr. Rajinikanth would launch his party in October/November, RMM administrator V.M. Sudhakar said no such decision had been taken as of yet. “Those are all rumours. We have not been told or informed of any impending party launch,” said Mr. Sudhakar.
However, senior RMM members said a decision was likely only after clarity emerged on whether the Assembly elections would be held along with the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.