Kanimozhi launches campaign from Tamil Nadu CM Palaniswami's home constituency

The DMK campaign is designed in a manner that would support and compliment Stalin's electioneering

DMK MP Kanimozhi on Sunday launched her campaign for the 2021 assembly elections from Edappadi in Salem district, the home constituency of Chief Minister K Palaniswami. Kanimozhi is the second DMK leader after youth wing president Udhayanidhi Stalin to tour the state as a prelude to party chief M K Stalin's formal launch of election campaign in January next year.

Udhayanidhi launched his campaign last week from Thirukuvalai, the birthplace of his grandfather and late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi.

Titled Vidiyalai Nokki Stalinin Kural (Stalin's Voice Towards A New Dawn), the campaign will take Udhayanidhi, Kanimozhi, and 13 senior leaders of the party across the state to highlight the “failures of the AIADMK Government.”

Kanimozhi, one of the most charismatic leaders of the DMK, launched her campaign from Edappadi, from where Palaniswami has been elected to the Tamil Nadu Assembly. After launching her campaign, she tore into the AIADMK dispensation for not “learning anything” from the 2015 floods that swamped the city of Chennai.

“Edappadi K Palaniswami has not fulfilled the promises he made to the people of his constituency. Moreover, he has surrendered the rights of Tamil Nadu before the Centre only to save his position,” Kanimozhi said during her campaign.

The DMK Lok Sabha MP also accused him of not heeding to the demands of weavers from Salem district on issues related to GST. As part of her campaign, Kanimozhi interacted with farmers and weavers in Salem and Edappadi and met party leaders in the district.

The campaign has been devised in a way it sets the tone for Stalin's electioneering, which is expected to begin in January. DMK, which has occupied the Opposition benches in the Tamil Nadu Assembly since 2011, is leaving no stone unturned to win the assembly elections due in the first half of 2021.

Four of the five deputy general secretaries – K Ponmudi, I Periyasamy, Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, and Anthiyur Selvaraj -- MPs Tiruchi N Siva, Dr S Senthilkumar, and Tamizhachi Thangapandian, are some of the prominent leaders who have been made part of the campaign.

The leaders will travel in a specially-designed propaganda vehicle and distribute pamphlets that will speak in detail about the “failures of the AIADMK government,” another leader said.