TTV Dinakaran may start campaign from today without symbol

For Dinakaran, a massive DMK victory is necessary to discredit the present AIADMK leadership and bring him back in the reckoning in the fight for the party legacy. Every vote he receives will bring down AIADMK nominee E Madhusudhanan’s tally and result in higher winning margin of the DMK, which has the support of all the Opposition parties, except the PMK and the DMDK.

A grassroot functionary supporting Dinakaran said, even while the top leaders continue to maintain that Dinakaran himself could win the polls, this time the pictures of jailed leader VK Sasikala along with that of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa would be displayed in the bypoll campaign.

But, the chances of him getting the ‘hat’ symbol had come to a nought after the Delhi High Court judgment that it could not direct the Election Commission to allocate a particular symbol to an independent candidate. With the number of independent candidates seeking ‘hat’ symbol going up, Dinakaran’s camp is uncertain about the allotment of the same symbol by the Election Commission.

While DMK candidate Marudhu Ganesh and AIADMK nominee E Madhusudhanan had already launched the campaign with well-known symbols, Dinakaran, who starts meeting people on December 5, could not be specific about the symbol. He will be seeking votes in his name alone. Only after the scrutiny of nominations on December 7, Dinakaran’s symbol will be known by that time.