The fast and the furious
After addressing rallies across the State on Saturday, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said he had picked up a new Tamil word — Vegam (fast).
Mr. Gandhi began his address at Maduravoyal, about 13 km west of here, by apologising to the crowd for arriving late by an hour and a half. Bad weather at Bengaluru, he explained, caused the delay. Before landing here, Mr. Gandhi addressed rallies in Madurai and Coimbatore. Running behind schedule, the Congress scion said he kept telling his driver “ Vegam , Vegam , Vegam !” as he rushed from one city to another. At Maduravoyal, Mr. Gandhi was supposed to start his address by 8 p.m. When he reached the venue, it was 9.41 p.m. Without wasting a minute, he came straight to the point and wrapped up his speech by 9.59 p.m.
Befriending a rival
DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin knows that this Assembly election will be a close affair. Therefore, he is leaving no stone unturned while canvassing. On Sunday, the DMK leader, who has been freely mingling with the common man over the past one year, was campaigning in south Tamil Nadu. He was walking on the road, when he spotted an auto rickshaw driver with the AIADMK flag fluttering on his vehicle. Mr. Stalin, in a sporting gesture, shook hands with the auto driver and appealed to him to vote for the DMK. The driver appeared pleased.
Lost in translation
In politics, playing the perfect interpreter is an art and very few such as former Union Minister P. Chidambaram have mastered it . On Sunday, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed an election rally in Kanyakumari, State BJP president Tamilisai Soundararajan, his interpreter, ended up making several gaffes. The most noticeable one was when Mr. Modi said his government was instrumental in rescuing thousands of Keralites and Tamils stranded in Yemen. While translating it into Tamil, Ms. Tamilisai said: “The Centre has freed several Tamils, who were bonded labourers in Mumbai.”
‘Keep quiet for a while’
Former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran is accompanying DMK leader M. Karunanidhi on his election tour and is normally seen turning the pages of the copy of the elderly leader’s speech. At a meeting in Chennai on Sunday, Mr. Karunanidhi repeated his speech a couple of times and Mr. Maran intervened to turn the pages. At one point, the irritated leader bluntly told him: “ Konjam summaa iruppa [Keep quiet for a while].”
