CHENNAI: The meeting of the AIADMK district secretaries on Friday is likely to give the final touches to the elaborate arrangements being made for the conduct of the Golden Jubilee revival conference at Madurai on August 20 when at least five lakh party supporters are expected to congregate at the venue providing an opportunity for general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami to display a show of strength.
A special train with 12 coaches, leaving Chennai on August 18, and extra coaches in other trains to Madurai are among the transport facilities organised for participants to travel from various parts of the State to Madurai, besides the fleets of vans and cabs that have been booked in advance in different places to ferry party workers and functionaries to the conference.
Though the AIADMK, launched in 1972, completed fifty years in 2022 itself, Palaniswami could not hold a massive rally or conference then to commemorate the golden jubilee due to the looming uncertainties following the leadership dispute. Now that the courts have given him the clearance to spearhead the party, he wants to make it a memorable event that would enthuse the cadre and functionaries.
With the BJP State president going on a yatra across the State and the DMK shifting to overdrive its preparations for the 2024 elections by holding a series of training programmes for booth agents, the AIADMK would like to make use of the conference to not only make its presence felt but also gear up for the electoral battle.
Whether the allies of the AIADMK would be invited to take part in the Madurai event has not yet been decided and might figure in the deliberations at the district secretaries meeting that would go on from 10.30 am at the party headquarters, Puratchi Thalivar MGR Maligai, on Avvai Shanmugam Road.
Among the other things that the meeting would discuss is the mobilization of crowds, for which each of the district secretaries would be asked as to how many people each one of them could organize to attend the meeting.
The local organisers have already booked hotels, lodges, private gardens, marriage halls and other public meeting facilities for the participants to stay and have also planned to open 10 food-supplying counters. The exact venue that had not been announced by the organisers is said to be on the outskirts of Madurai. A vast tract of empty land would be used to erect pandals and the stage, it is learnt.
Palaniswami is keen on making the conference a success as this would be the first meeting after his taking over the party's reins. Though he became the Chief Minister quite soon after J Jayalalithaa passed away, the leadership of the party eluded him for a long time and hence he could not organize a party jamboree like the one that he has now envisaged.
He had stressed the importance of making the revival conference a success since his predecessors in the party, M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, had organized such mega conferences to reach out to and motivate the cadre at the grassroots level.
It also became imperative for Palaniswami to hold a State level meeting as the party chief since his bete noire O Panneerselvam, who heads the breakaway group of the AIADMK had already organized a meeting at Trichy drawing a sizeable crowd and is planning his next conclave in Madurai.
