Health Minister and AIADMK nominee for Viralimalai C. Vijayabaskar, who has been seeking votes on a feverish pace, seems to have found a robust campaigner in his teenage daughter V. Rithanya Priyadarshini. He takes her along in his campaign van.
Seated in the vehicle that covered the interior areas of the constituency, Ms. Priyadarshini refers to her father as ‘ungal veetu pillai’ (son of your house), reasoning out that he has spent most of his time with people of the constituency than with his family.
On the day of Deepavali in 2019, she said, her father was supervising the operation to rescue a minor boy who fell into a borewell at Nadukattupatti near Manapparai. “I myself told my father that he should not return home without rescuing the boy,” she said.
Appealing to the electorate to vote for Mr. Vijayabaskar, Ms. Priyadarshini said he was the one who had brought Cauvery water to the constituency.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic when many of us did not venture out fearing the spread of the infection, my father was on the ground inspecting the COVID-19 wards at hospitals without caring about his health,” she said.
Just over a month ago, she had her bharatanatya arangetram in Chennai in the presence of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.
