CHENNAI : While the ruling AIADMK has fielded a huge ‘star’ team to campaign for the party across the State, the opposition DMK seems content to just depend on party chief MK Stalin and his actor son Udhayanidhi. The AIADMK team features ‘headquarter orators’, dance troupes and film personalities. Close to 50 actors, including R Sarath Kumar and Karthik, and 12 film directors have been deployed by the party to campaign across the State. 

Besides, six ‘headquarter orators’ and a dance troupe of party members have also been sent out to campaign in every Parliamentary constituency. “Actually, these activities should have started even before the nominations were filed but the party high-command has only now only announced a list of speakers and film personalities. We will be able to campaign for 12 days after chalking out the campaign routes and inviting star campaigners. However, better late than never.

These campaigners can cover more ground in the constituency than just the candidate campaigning alone,” said an AIADMK functionary. Aside from these ‘star’ campaigners, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, Deputy CM O Panneerselvam, DMDK’s Premalatha Vijayakanth and PMK’s Dr Ramadoss are campaigning for the alliance.

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The DMK, however, hasn’t deployed any team for campaigning across the State. “Unless the party high command allots a constituency for us, party workers in that district will not give us any respect. Right now, as the party hasn’t allotted any constituencies for us to campaign in, we are going along with the candidates as uninvited guests,” an headquarter orator of the DMK told Express.

“In the DMK-led alliance, only Stalin and his son Udhayanidhi Stalin are performing as star campaigners. All others are playing supporting roles. Other than the father and son, Nanjil Sampath, Tiruchi Siva, Dindigul Leoni, actors Vasu Vikram and Chandrasekar are only campaigning for the DMK,” he said, adding that Peter Alphonse and KS Alagiri were campaigning for the Congress and Vaiko for the MDMK.
“All the other leaders are just campaigning in their own constituencies, making it very difficult for DMK workers to carry out the campaign. As a result we are lagging behind the AIADMK in those areas,” he added.