Rural first is central dists’ campaign route

TIRUCHY: In order to use the swaying mindset of the voters from rural pockets of the Tiruchy constituency, the candidates have started to make a beeline towards the rural areas for campaigning. They feel that the political war can be fought well in the rural grounds as the voters of the urban areas used to be choosy with individual decision while the rural voters use to lean towards a party or a candidate en mass when approached.

Among the six Lok Sabha constituencies in the region, Tiruchy constituency has a vast urban location and the other segments have more rural locations than the urban areas. Since the previous elections had proved that rural votes played a major role, the candidates and their respective party election in-charges chart out campaigning plans accordingly.

According to political observers here, as of now, the DMK alliance as well as the AIADMK have equal weightage in the city and the urban voters have their own choice of electing the candidates and the political campaign in the city would fail to change the mindset of the people in general at any cost.

Sensing this, candidates who have started the public campaign started to camp in rural pockets of the constituency for the past several days. For instance, archrivals MDMK candidate Durai Vaiko and AIADMK candidate P Karuppaiah, AMMK (BJP) candidate P Senthilnathan and NTK candidate Jallikattu D Rajesh have been camping in rural areas for the past few days.

Interestingly, these candidates could be seen in the city only when the leaders from their respective alliance were campaigning in their favour. So far, Chief Minister MK Stalin, Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin and Kamal Haasan had campaigned for Durai Vaiko. While Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami, DMDK general secretary Premalatha Vijayakant and actress Vindhya rallied in the city for AIADMK candidate Karuppaiah. BJP state president K Annanmalai and AMMK general secretary TTV Dhinakaran have campaigned for the AMMK candidate Senthilnathan, while Seeman campaigned for the NTK candidate Rajesh.

During their visits, these candidates were in the city and all other days, they were in the rural areas like Gandharvakottai, Pudukkottai, Kilikoodu, Tiruverumbur, Athavathur and Nachikurichi.

“We need to cover the entire rural areas at least three times before the polls. Because, we need to familiarise the candidates among the voters,” said a DMK functionary.

While an AIADMK leader said that they have strengthened the booth level committee members in all the rural areas as the rural votes are the deciding factor in an election.

According to political observers, the rural voters would lean towards the candidate and particular parties en masse and so the candidates have started to woo them in all ways. As for the choosy urban voters, the candidates would cover them close to the polls.