It’s nearing 6 p.m. in the municipality of Jayakondam, about 30 km from Kumbakonam on a weekday. A narrow turn of the highway is packed with wildly cheering crowds, all thronging around the white campaign van of T.T.V. Dhinakaran, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) leader, who is making his second campaign stop for the day here. They converge around the vehicle, escorting it to a narrow square junction that is literally packed to the rafters, with people lining the entrance of shops, watching from house balconies above and from the terraces surrounding the square.
Mr. Dhinakaran, who has emerged at the top of his campaign van, wastes no time in launching into his speech, greeting supporters and transitioning to berating the AIADMK in two smooth lines.
“There is no party called the AIADMK. It is only a private company owned by EPS (Edappadi K. Palaniswami) and OPS (O. Panneerselvam). And they have sold this company to Modi. Are Amma ’s (Jayalalithaa’s) true supporters there in the AIADMK? No, they are here with me,” he tells the crowd.
“On one side is the EPS, OPS tender company,” he continues. “Then there is this other guy.” Pausing for dramatic effect, he then launches into the now familiar imitation of the slightly guttural voice of DMK chief M.K. Stalin, a nailed-on crowd-pleaser. “I am the protector of the people. I am not an enemy of the Hindus,” he says, mimicking Mr. Stalin, as the crowd goes wild. “Why do parties need to talk about religion or caste?” he continues, changing tack once again. “There are so many issues all over Tamil Nadu — educated youngsters not having any jobs, businesses having shut down thanks to GST and 6 lakh families in Tamil Nadu where not a single person has a job.”
It is hard to read much into the crowd size, or the political paraphernalia that might go into manufacturing them, but it’s easy to see that Mr. Dhinakaran finds an easy connect [with the masses] with his style of speaking.
There is irony, of course, in the fact that Mr. Dhinakaran, a former power-wielding nephew of Sasikala in the AIADMK, should find himself cast as this folksy figure, but it’s clear that he senses an opportunity in this election to build support.
“I have always been saying that after Amma and Karunanidhi’s demise, all parties are new parties,” he tells The Hindu on the campaign trail.
“How can you say that any party has a vote bank? If the DMK has such a big vote bank, why did they lose the deposit in a small Assembly constituency (R.K. Nagar)?” he asks. “If you look at our campaign events, you will see that over 80% of the crowd are young people and women,” he says.
