DMK forms poll manifesto committee: Kanimohzi in, Raja out

The committee, which is to be coordinated by party old horse T.R. Baalu, has a few surprise inclusions like eminent high court advocate N.R. Elango, whom party treasurer M.K.Stalin had handpicked and fielded in Arakkonam in the 2014 LS polls. While dad Karunanidhi has accommodated his 2G-tainted Rajya Sabha-MP daughter Kanimohzi who is recovering from a throat surgery she had undergone recently, his blue-eyed boy A. Raja, another accused in the spectrum case whose name featured in previous five poll manifesto committee’s, including the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, has been given a miss.

Apart from the usual names like Subbulakshmi Jagadeeshan, TKS Elangovan, professor A. Ramasamy and R Shanmughasundaram, the party has also included party deputy general secretary V.P. Duraisamy, a member of Dalit community, as a part of Karunanidhi’s ‘favourite’ policy of inclusive politics.

Nonagenarian Karunanidhi has considered it wise to also involve MBA graduate turned minister Thangam Thennarasu in manifesto preparation.

A struggling DMK might perhaps have got an edge, at least in terms of time, by being the first to constitute a committee to prepare its poll manifesto, which interests critics as much as the voters more so after the ‘famous’ 2006 polls during which it was described as the “Hero of polls” by then union minister P. Chidambaram.

The culture of freebies, which has a very long history in Tamil Nadu, was revived in 2006 by the DMK. The party’s poll fundraiser was also launched long before others did. Party insiders, who admit that successive poll defeats and a belligerent AIADMK area cause of concern, believe that the announcement would lift cadre morale and prepare them for the big poll year.