Dravidian majors’ sentimental start with Tiruchy lingers on

TIRUCHY: As political temperature sores up across the nation ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the political parties in Tamil Nadu, particularly the Dravidian majors, have once again sentimentally struck with the ‘Thiruppumunai Tiruchy’ (Turning point Tiruchy) concept which played a major role in their parties growth. The 2024 is no exception as they have derived plans to kick-start their campaign from here.

The DMK has scheduled to commence the campaign on March 22 and the AIADMK has been planning to start their campaign from here on March 24 with introduction of their respective alliance party candidates.

Though claimed to be far from sentiments, the DMK never let off the ‘Tiruchy Sentiment’ as it always considers the place as lucky one for the party to come out with any major decisions as quoted on several occasions by the party patriarch and the late chief minister M Karunanidhi prior to any election and the present DMK president and Chief Minister MK Stalin used to be nostalgic whenever he visits Tiruchy and he never skips saying a few words about his association with the city.

The DMK has given the responsibility to Minister KN Nehru, the ‘man of conferences’ as referred by Karunanidhi and CM Stalin and the party have decided to hold a mega public meeting on March 22 at Siruganur where the candidates of the DMK led alliance would be introduced.

Inspecting the preparations at Siruganur, Nehru said, Chief Minister MK Stalin, MDMK general secretary Vaiko and a few other alliance party leaders would take part in the meeting. “Kick-starting the election campaign from Siruganur, our ‘Thalaivar’ (Stalin) would possibly tour the entire state seeking votes for all the 39 candidates belonging to DMK led alliance and it would definitely be a winning start,” Nehru said.

Meanwhile, AIADMK too has opted to commence their campaign sentimentally from Tiruchy as their late leader J Jayalalithaa did. The AIADMK leaders have selected a spot at Vannankovil in the outskirts of Tiruchy for the commencement of their campaign scheduled on March 24 in which the party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami is addressing the cadre.

On Tuesday, AIADMK leader KP Munusamy, SP Velumani, P Thangamani and the district secretaries visited the spot. “The general secretary would introduce the candidates contesting in the AIADMK-led alliance for the Lok Sabha polls. This would be a show of strength and the cadre from across the state are expected to take part in the meeting,” Munusamy said after inspecting the spot.

According to a political observer N Senthilvel, Tiruchy plays a sentimental spot for all political parties for several decades. Tiruchy is otherwise called as ‘Thiruppumunai Tiruchy’ (Turning point Tiruchy) for all political parties as most of the political parties have taken a vital decision in Tiruchy meetings for years.