Chennai: All eyes of the country should be on Tamil Nadu on Wednesday. The two most powerful politicians of contemporary India, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, will be in the state on April 16.
Sonia would wax eloquence at Nagercoil or Kanyakumari LS constituency, a traditional Congress bastion, which, the party believes, is its only trump card to prevent it from drawing a blank in the April 24 Lok Sabha poll. Elsewhere in Salem, Narendra Modi will sound the poll bugle in full force in Krishnagiri, Salem and Coimbatore.
The entire Congress regiment of the state except Union shipping minister G.K. Vasan is expected to be in full attendance for the Nagercoil rally, from where Sonia could head to Thiruvananthapuram for another pit stop, apparently, to brighten the party’s prospects in one of the two southern states where the party could put up an elaborate show.
Meanwhile, Mr Modi, who took a casual dig at AIADMK and DMK Sunday last, could do enough to mute critics provoked by his silence on Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK. Sources have it that Vijayakanth would parade all his 14 candidates at Modi’s Salem rally. Vijayakanth’s brother-in-law L.K. Sudheesh contests in Salem. Also the actor-politician has summoned all his candidates to make themselves present in Salem rally on Wednesday.
Vijayakanth, who has been Modi’s star campaigner in TN, is learnt to be planning to go flat out against the Dravidian majors, particularly Jayalalithaa, in the presence of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
With Jayalalithaa emphasising that she was for a non-BJP and non-Congress governmennt at the Centre, observers would not be surprised if there is venom in Modi’s attack on Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi.
DMDK chief Vijayakanth perhaps has enough reasons to expect BJP’s prime ministerial candidate to add further ammunition to his party’s campaign; especially for his brother-in-law Sudheesh in Salem where he would attend a massive rally.
For no one chanted the NaMo mantra in Tamil Nadu in the last fortnight as loud as Vijayakanth, who has been the most successful crowd puller for the BJP-led alliance.
Meanwhile, observers are also curious to know if PMK founder Dr Ramadoss, who has been largely withdrawn in this Lok Sabha poll, will attend one of Modi rallies. Ramadoss senior has thus far only campaigned for his son even as his son Anbumani and Vijayakanth had exchanged pleasantries.
