Chennai: The rank and file of the ruling AIADMK are spending sleepless nights with party supremo J. Jayalalithaa being extremely active during the last one week, periodically shuffling party functionaries.
The party leadership has jumped into poll mood, hence the frequent changes to strengthen the party, said party seniors adding that the party, usually, unlike the DMK, undergoes a complete overhauling ahead of polls when fresh blood is inducted into the organisation.
The situation is such that AIADMK’s Chennai unit now has three fresh faces as its district secretaries, (M. M. Babu, T. Nagar Sathya and K. Srinivasan), excluding party old timer P. Vettrivel. In Kanyakumari, the party had also seen the return of former strongman Thalavai Sundaram. All the new district secretaries will be shortly inducting youngsters into the party and new posts for election, campaign related works are also to be announced shortly, party sources said.
“While the change has evoked mixed response among party functionaries, the cadres have now started looking for new strategies from the new office-bearers and are also hoping for the return of party seniors”, said a former AIADMK MLA who wished not to be named. “Amma is the only face of our party, but we are eagerly awaiting the return of party strongmen like K. A. Sengottayan, C. V. Shanmugham, D. Jayakumar and Nainar Nagendran. For instance, Tirunelveli is not represented in the state cabinet,” the party functionary said.
The party which started shuffling in October is continuing its spree and in the past one month it has shown the door for more than dozen district and state-level functionaries, posts considered to be pivotal, particularly when elections are round the corner.
