Political parties are campaigning at full blast for next year’s Assembly election, a scenario no one would have conceived as possible months ago following the COVID-19 outbreak.
Even though the ruling AIADMK is slated to begin its formal campaign on Sunday, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami already hit the ground in Salem a few days ago. Besides, he has toured almost all districts in his official capacity.
The DMK, the BJP, Makkal Needhi Maiam and other parties have also begun electioneering through different modes. The pandemic, though, has brought in restrictions, and parties are likely to rely on technology to complement their physical campaigns.
AIADMK’s plans
“Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami will launch campaign videos, highlighting the achievements of the government and party at the YMCA, Royapettah, on Sunday. It will be one of the highlights of our campaign,” said ‘Ma Foi’ K. Pandiarajan, Minister for Tamil Official Language and Tamil Culture.
He said digital campaigns would be accorded high priority and the party had decided to appoint around 80,000 IT professionals.
“Our virtual campaign will use the most advanced technology to counter the rivals. There will be a Facebook group at the booth level to give a cascading effect. They will create a database, retweet messages and propagate our achievements,” Mr.Pandiarajan explained.
He said the pandemic had given an opportunity to concentrate on the structure of the organisation. The AIADMK had created 73 district units and 31 zones and appointed senior leaders and Ministers and in-charge of these zones.
“The objective is to decentralise the campaign. In every booth, there will be 75 persons who will be doing the campaign. There is an all-women group, a youth group and a regular group,” he said.
DMK strategy
The DMK, which had roped in Prasant Kishore’s Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) to evolve a political strategy, is not lagging behind.
It first launched, ‘Vidiyalai Nokki Stalinin Kural’ (Stalin’s voice for dawn) and sent youth wing head Udhayanidhi Stalin and women’s wing leader Kanimozhi, among others, on a State-wide tour. Senior leaders are also participating in the campaign. Now, the party is simultaneously holding ‘makkal gram sabha’ meetings in villages.
“Today, there is a situation that is almost like December 2019. People are participating in our meetings and campaign in large numbers and we insist on following precautionary measures such as wearing a mask and sanitising hands,” said former DMK Minister Thangam Thennarasu.
He said that unless an extraordinary situation emerged, nothing would prevent or hinder political parties from organising intensive campaigns in the form of public meetings and rallies.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau member G. Ramakrishnan also felt that the election would witness a regular campaign as life had “returned to normal” in the State.
“Except schools and colleges, all other institutions, industries, commercial establishments and other activities have resumed. When Bihar underwent Assembly election successfully at a time COVID-19 was raging, nothing can prevent Tamil Nadu from witnessing a full-fledged campaign since the cases are decreasing,” he said.
Mr. Ramakrishnan said though a second-wave now in countries like Britain was a matter of concern, scientists had opined that the vaccine would apply to all variants of COVID-19.