The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Work for victory, Karunanidhi tells party district units

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Work for victory, Karunanidhi tells party district units

R.K. Radhakrishnan

Calls for revival of street-corner meetings throughout the State

READYING FOR POLLS: DMK president M. Karunanidhi at a discussion with district office-bearers at Anna Arivalayam in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: Continuing his meetings with the district units, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M. Karunanidhi, has asked them to be extra careful when they scrutinise the draft electoral rolls.

Mr. Karunanidhi, who is on the last leg of his meeting with district office-bearers, did not mince words when he spoke of the various shortcomings in the units. The message to the units that he addressed so far — including those from Madurai on Monday — was clear and unambiguous: This was the time to put the party above everything else. This was the time to sink differences and work for victory in the Assembly elections.

He praised the office-bearers whereever it was due. For instance, he said stuffing of electoral rolls first came to his notice from Minjur. He commended the party worker and said everyone in the party should keep his eyes open to detect such wrongdoing.

During the review of performance of the Kancheepuram district, he said despite the fact that the very mention of the district cheered him up, the byelection loss was the first thing that came to his mind now. ``We should not forget that we were a little deceived in the byelections in Kancheepuram and Gummidipoondi.''

``If we had begun our [election] work about 10 days earlier, the situation would have been different. At least in the general elections we have to get ahead of them [the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam]," he said.

He said the Kancheepuram district unit had the huge responsibility of turning things round and ensuring a memorable victory. For this, the entire party machinery should begin working hard from now on.

Calling for a revival of the evening street-corner meetings in his discussions with the Tiruvallur unit, Mr. Karunanidhi referred to the late Chief Minister C.N.Annadurai, referring to these as "evening colleges". Such meetings needed to be held throughout the State so that people were educated on various aspects of State politics and what the DMK was doing for the betterment of the State. People also needed to be apprised of the impact of the policies adopted by the State Government and encouraged to oppose those policies inimical to development.

Mr.Karunanidhi told partymen not to depend on the media to carry the message to the people: they themselves should be the medium. He reminded them that it was not important whether one was able to speak well or not; it was enough if the party worker spoke about issues even in a drawing room discussion. In his opinion, people forget quickly and hence it was important to keep reminding them of issues that they needed to be concerned about. It has to be borne in mind that there were people who played up the few concessions and welfare measures doled out by the Jayalalithaa Government. They tried to give a positive spin to this. The partymen should approach people and explain to them the background of the concessions. The aim should be to unseat the ``unfair and anti-people'' regime.

He wanted the party's district bosses to ensure that the party flags were visible in all public places.

Mr.Karunanidhi said this was a time when even parties that were yet to be born had huge publicity campaigns.

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