Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Friday hit back at Union Finance Minister and her political bête noire P. Chidambaram for his remarks on her electioneering style of choosing the aerial route.
She said there was limited time to tour all the 40 constituencies (39 in Tamil Nadu and one in Puducherry) to meet the people.
Ms. Jayalalithaa recalled that she had been touring the length and breadth of the State for the last 32 years to the extent that “there is no village where I have not set my feet.”
ADVERTISEMENT
She said that she had to travel by air since it would burden the policemen if she travelled by road across the State.
“Mr. Chidambaram, who had been the Union Home Minister, knows the kind of threat perception for me. He should again read the letter he had sent to me as Home Minister in 2009 and also the reply I had sent to him,” she said.
Ms. Jayalalithaa, who was earlier the propaganda secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam under the leadership of party founder M.G. Ramachandran, said that she had campaigned for months together in each and every general elections to the Tamil Nadu Assembly and Lok Sabha after 1984.
ADVERTISEMENT
Stating that she had campaigned for Mr. Chidambaram in the past (when the Congress was an ally of the AIADMK), she said: “I have even sought votes for Mr. Chidambaram. He used to follow me in an open jeep,” she said.