Just when the district secretaries anticipated the party chief to discuss the exit poll predictions bawrely a couple of days ahead of the counting day, Stalin got his legal advisor cum Rajya Sabha MP NR Elango to tutor the participants, mainly the candidates about the dos and don’ts on counting day.

In the weeks ahead of the election, Elango had dispatched copies of handbooks to the district in charge across the state on the precautions to be taken on polling and counting day.

After thanking his party district leaders for extending their cooperation to the party in the ten years out of power, Stalin invited Elango to allay the doubts of the candidates.

The DMK legal advisor, who had conducted similar district-wise meetings through video call ahead of the polls, had conducted similar sessions for alliance party candidates on request.

Party leaders who attended the meeting told this paper that Elango elaborated on the technicality of ballot units.

The candidates were given a checklist to be done on counting day, especially checking the signature on the pink slips.

The candidates were asked to make sure that the postal ballots were not kept in the rooms where control units of EVMs are kept and a table is allocated for every 500 postal ballots.

The participants were instructed to confirm that signatures of officers who collected the postal ballots were present in Form 13 A.

The advocate turned MP also instructed candidates to get the results of the postal ballots announced and uploaded on the website.