esperate to see their leader and party general secretary Jayalalithaa exonerated from the corruption charges, thousands of AIADMK partymen across the State went into a prayer mode on Sunday.
Led by Ministers and other party seniors, the AIADMK cadre preformed special yagams and poojas, lit lakhs of lamps, carried milk pots, broke thousands of coconuts and every other ritual possible praying for the return of Ms. Jayalalithaa as the Chief Minister.
In the Cauvery delta districts, Food Minister R. Kamaraj carried milk pot at the head of the 6,667-strong contingent comprising overwhelmingly women from Sri Maatru Uraitha Pillaiyar shrine to the famous Sri Tyagaraja Swamy temple in Tiruvarur on Sunday.
Strikingly, the gathering had just a couple of hundred male AIADMK cadre in the procession that went round the four main thoroughfares around the sprawling temple complex. Special abishekam and poojas were performed for the Sri Durgai Amman shrine in the temple complex.
The cadre also performed Sudarsana Maha Yagna at the Moolai Hanuman temple with the Housing and Agriculture Minister R. Vaithilingam leading the group. In Madurai, special poojas were conducted at Maha Muneeswarar Temple at the North Gopuram of Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple on Sunday.
In Karur, 1,00,008 lamps were lit by the AIADMK cadre at Eswaran temple on Saturday night. A large number of devotees, mostly cadre including Deputy Speaker of the Lok Shaba M. Thambidurai and Transport Minister V. Senthil Balaji, took part. They also organised ‘Navagraha Santhi Homam’ and ‘Asthra Homam’ for about six hours from 6 am on Sunday at Eswaran temple.
At Srirangam, a ‘Maha Yagam’ was performed by the AIADMK cadre on Veli Andal Street, close to Sri Ranganathasamy temple in Srirangam. Witnessed by about 500 party members, as many as 15 Vedic priests chanted mantras and hymns for about 3 hours from 8 am. They sought the divine intervention for their leader to clear all hurdles for Ms. Jayalalithaa.
Meanwhile in Chennai, police vehicles and uniformed police personnel were positioned at entry points leading to the otherwise empty roads leading to Poes Garden.
Mother’s Day
“Mother of Tamil Nadu, Happy Mothers’ Day” screamed a poster on Sunday on Radhakrishnan Salai. “We are all praying and hoping for the best,” said an AIADMK member at the party’s headquarters.
Former Minister D. Jayakumar and AIADMK MLA Pazha Karuppaiah have used the occasion of “World Mother’s Day” to express solidarity with Ms Jayalalithaa. In the morning, a vinyl posters conveying “vetri namathey” (victory is ours) appeared on Radhakrishnan Salai only to be removed by afternoon.AIADMK cadre are expected to turn up in Chennai in large numbers on Monday. Ministers stayed back in the city, party sources said, since “Madam is in Chennai.”
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