Udhayanidhi Stalin said he wanted to highlight the “improper administration” of the AIADMK government.
Chennai:
The son of DMK chief MK Stalin, Udhyanidhi, was arrested in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district on Friday while launching the party’s campaign for next year’s elections in an event that police say violated COVID- sidewalks. 19. “There are no permits for political gatherings,” a police officer told NDTV.
Highlighting the “mismanagement” of the AIADMK government, Udhayanidhi Stalin, the leader of the DMK youth wing, launched the party’s 75-day campaign ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly elections to be held early next year with other senior leaders.
Earlier, at an event organized in Tirukkuvalai of Tiruvarur district, the birthplace of former party chief M Karunanidhi, he said that he had launched the campaign to bring his father’s message to various parts of the state to end the “darkness that has engulfed Tamil Nadu “.
The campaign titled “Vidiyalai Nokki Stalinin Kural” (Stalin’s voice for dawn) will cover all 234 segments of the assembly ahead of the state assembly elections to be held in April and May.
The party’s Women’s Wing leader and Lok Sabha MP Kanimozhi, former ministers K Ponmudi and I Periyasamy, among others, will tour different parts of the state as part of the campaign, according to a DMK press release.
“The leaders will explain to the people the slogan of the party chairman to walk towards a new dawn by rejecting the atrocities and administrative lapses of the ruling AIADMK,” he said.
DMK Chief Secretary KN Nehru said 15 top party leaders will address 1,500 meetings in 75 days across the state in all 234 constituencies, while Stalin is expected to join the election campaign in January.
Nehru, a former minister, said that due to orders banning large crowds from political gatherings, among others, given the COVID-19 pandemic, Stalin was expected to hold election rallies starting in January.
“But he (Stalin) is in contact with the people via videoconference. There will be a crowd if he goes to public meetings … after January the campaign will start,” Nehru told the PTI news agency.
Many also see the DMK move that places Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi in a leading role for the campaign, as a calculated step to give him credit later on if the party wins the election, so that he can be elevated to number 2. of the party.
A resurgent DMK is eager to topple archrival AIADMK in the state where it has been in opposition for the past nine years.
The party was defeated in the 2011 assembly elections when J Jayalalithaa led his party to a resounding victory. He lost again in 2016, before bouncing back with a strong performance in last year’s Lok Sabha election.
An alliance led by the DMK, which also includes Congress, won 38 of the 39 parliament seats in Tamil Nadu, in addition to Puducherry’s only seat, leaving just one for the AIADMK, in the first major election in the state held after the death of Ms Jayalalithaa and DMK Patriarch M Karunanidhi in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
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