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Cornered
Jaya harps on voters’ choice
Express News
Service
Abnipatti,
April 20:
I have faith in you, the people of Andipatti. That is why I am contesting
from here.’’ J. Jayalalitha kicked off the election tour
of Tamil Nadu on Thursday with her familiar rhetoric, seeking votes
in the name of party founder M.G. Ramachandran.
The AIADMK chief
started with the remote areas of the constituency, reminding voters
how they had elected MGR from this constituency and helped him come
to power in 1984 when he was fighting for life in a US hospital.
She read out
from a prepared speech throughout her three-and-a-half-hour campaign
in the villages adjoining Andipatti, holding the DMK government
responsible for the growing extremism in the state.
At Kunnur village,
the first stop, she was welcomed by a handful of women, old and
young, with smiles. ‘‘When we have our lives to spare,
why not vote,’’ said a woman, an AIADMK loyalist since
the days of MGR.
Women and children
at her next stop waited for nearly 30 minutes as Jaya finished lunch
inside her van by the roadside. The villagers wanted her to hoist
the party flag. Jaya obliged, lowered the wind-shield for a minute,
touched the rope without stepping out and left. It was a disappointment
for the small but enthusiastic crowd.
A little away,
a group waited for her with songs recorded on tape. A few songs
were played followed by one of her speeches. And Jaya heard what
she wished she had never said: ‘‘When I decide, I do it
with conviction. I believe the BJP can give a stable government.’’
That was her speech as an ally of the BJP in 1998.
On another occasion,
she charged the DMK with forcing the general elections on the country
in 1991 and asking if the government should spend Rs 1,000 crore
for the DMK’s sake. Not many villagers would have failed to
note it was the AIADMK chief who was responsible for bringing down
the Vajpayee government in 1998.
Jaya alleged
irregularities in the saree-dhoti scheme and malpractices in the
Public Distribution System to the tune of Rs 1,400 crore. ‘‘My
enemies are conspiring to prevent me from contesting the elections,’’
she told a crowd.
As her cavalcade proceeded through villages, Jaya kissed the foreheads
of babies, named them and gifted money to their proud fathers. Once
in a while, she would step out of the van, garland statues of MGR
and accept aaratis.
With court verdicts
looming large over her electoral fortune, she kept repeating even
if convicted by the special courts, she believed in people’s
verdict as the ultimate. ‘‘Just because she is a woman,
they are doing it,’’ said some women.
There were no scathing remarks on Chief Minister and DMK president
Karunanidhi or his son M.K. Stalin.
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