MNM plans to eat into DMK’s base 

It was not a decision made in a fit of rage or after the recent Parliamentary polls. The idea was proposed following a survey done by a leading political think tank of the country engaged by the party, sources said.

The think tank, which had successfully managed political and election engineering for Jagan’s YSR Congress, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and Amrinder Singh of Congress in Punjab, was roped in recently by the actor to increase his stakes in the coming elections. The think tank had concluded after nearly a month-long statewide survey of MNM that the DMK was strongest party at the grassroots, especially rural areas and an equally strong AIADMK of Edappadi K Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam was subject to change after the incumbent government’s tenure ends.

A DMK senior, admitted to having knowledge of the survey from their internal think tank, said the intensive exercise had also exposed the weakness of the actor’s party which was not to be seen a great deal in rural areas. If sources in both parties are to be believed, the agency had also cautioned the fledgling party of the popularity shift likely to happen when actor Rajinikanth makes his actual political plunge.

The DMK, which caught whiff of Kamal shifting his focus from AIADMK to the DMK in the months before the recently concluded Parliamentary elections, had advised its lieutenants to respond in kind to the actor, who, for a while, was training his guns at DMK president MK Stalin personally. Thanks to the hectic shooting schedule Kamal has been engrossed in, the two parties have taken an intermittent break in exchanging thoughts in public.