Jaya sounds poll bugle, holds rally in Coimbatore

In what was perhaps its biggest rally since the 2006 assembly poll, AIADMK General Secretary Jayalalitha sent out two strong signals:  One, the DMK using the Tamil meet to turn the tables against AIADMK’s strongholds of Southern and Western districts of Tamil Nadu will not jell. Second, her party was keen to win over new allies, and if need be even take actor-turned-politician Vijayakant’s DMDK on board.

In a firm move to erase the latest setbacks of several former ministers and senior functionaries defecting to the DMK, Jayalalitha virtually launched a poll campaign to prove that the majority of the cadres were still with her.

The rally, according to party sources, was also to reassure the “doubting Thomases” in her key allies like the CPM, whose former legislative party leader  C Govindasamy and Tiruppur MLA being the latest to be wooed by the DMK.

“Get ready for the assembly elections; anytime now it can be announced,”  Jayalalitha extolled her party cadres and volunteers, at the sprawling VOC stadium in the heart of the textile city.   

The youth in the crowd went berserk over Jaya’s call to “unseat the DMK from power” and to her plea that the “power to do overturn the single family regime is with every one of you through your vote”. Youths in an upbeat mood, danced and whistled to a roaring “yeah” from the crowd. 

Attributing the record food inflation to the DMK, which, she said has been ignoring agricultural production and doing nothing to control the “menace” of on-line trading of essential commodities, Jayalalitha  said Karunanidhi’s argument that petroleum price hike was caused by the Centre, would not hold water.