The AIADMK’s splendid performance in the Lok Sabha polls set off rapturous celebrations by the cadre across the State, though the party will not be required to play a role in the Central government in the immediate future.
With the party’s achievement, winning 37 of the 39 seats by going it alone, peaking to its highest ever in a general election since the AIADMK was founded by M.G. Ramachandran in 1972, it was a sweet success for the general secretary and MGR’s political heir, Jayalalithaa.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it won just nine seats and since then, the party has come a long way in the last five years, said party workers in a celebratory mood.
“There might have been a Modi wave elsewhere, but only a Lady wave coasted home here in Tamil Nadu. That our Amma herself had prophesied on the eve of the elections. Our leader has made her mentor Puratchi Thalaivar MGR proud by achieving what he had always wanted, decimating the DMK in the electoral fray,” said a party functionary, N. R. Mukund, who came all the way from Salem to greet his leader in Chennai, as he danced his way with his friends through the main road leading to the party headquarters on Friday.
That the party will not occupy the Treasury Benches in the Lok Sabha seemed a bit of a dampener on the cadre. It reflected in their trifle disappointed faces, especially among the women workers present at the AIADMK headquarters.
“Amma’s contribution will still be there as we are the third largest party at the national level. Had we had a chance [in the government], it would have been a different case altogether,” said S. Angaiyarkanni of Perambur in Chennai.
But for her and many other party workers, Ms. Jayalalithaa’s spectacular show has given a huge comfort that they could take their winning streak to the Assembly elections due in two years.
“The Congress paid the price for not recognising the stature of our Chief Minister who repeatedly had to fight to get the State’s share in every sphere of activity,” noted another party worker S. Veerasamy of Aminjikarai.
“The letters our leader wrote, detailing the State’s requirements, were reminders that failed to wake up the Congress, which was playing to the tunes of the DMK. Ultimately, the people of the State taught the two parties a lesson or two in this election,” he said.
