JOIN USThe crowd breaks into raptures and raises slogans and flock a tempo traveller which approaches them at a snail’s pace. The vehicle stops and suddenly there is a studied silence but seconds later, the crowd goes berserk when a frail-looking man appears from the tempo and holds a mike to address the gathering. The man for whom the people have been waiting for is none other than Tamil comedian Vadivelu, who has now emerged as the ‘star campaigner’ for the ruling DMK-Congress combine.
Unlike politicians,he speaks in a very plain and colloquial Tamil with a slang that is quite common in Madurai and other parts of southern Tamil Nadu. And most of the times, his target is only person - Vijayakant, his colleague in tinsel town and president of DMDK, which has aligned with Opposition AIADMK.
With his simple speech that has a mix of comedy and sarcasm, Vadivelu draws huge crowds to places wherever he goes after the DMK’s strongman in Madurai and Union minister M K Alagiri fielded him in the election campaign.
Alagiri rightly used a small tiff between Vadivelu and Vijayakant for the party’s political gains. In this stronghold of AIADMK and the constituency which is currently held by AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha, he spared none.
Flanked by DMK candidate Mukaiah in this AIADMK stronghold, Vadivelu asks the frenzied crowd, “Jayalalitha was elected from this constituency twice. What has she done?”