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Nonagenarian Communist leaders hit campaign trail

Sankaraiah would be hitting the campaign trail yet again on Tuesday seeking support for his party's Maduravoyal candidate G. Bheemrao

Chennai: Besides, the DMK president, M. Karunanidhi, doing election campaigning, two nonagenarian Communist veterans are continuing their campaign firmly since the first general election of 1952.

The 94-year-old N. Sankaraiah of CPI (M) has been campaigning since the first general election, while CPI veteran R. Nallakannu, 91, missed the campaign in 1952 polls as he was serving a jail term. Karunanidhi’s party had boycotted the first general election.

Sankaraiah would be hitting the campaign trail yet again on Tuesday seeking support for his party’s Maduravoyal candidate G. Bheemrao. “In the first general election, I had campaigned in Madurai for P. Ramamurthy who was in prison. He won the election from jail,” Sankaraiah who had spent over eight years in prison and three years underground, said.

He recalled that Periyar, founder of Dravidar Kazhagam, extended support to CPI. “DMK did not contest the first election but offered to extend support if the party accepted their demand for creation of Dravida Nadu. CPI did not accept it,” he said.

Nallakannu who campaigned for his party’s Saidapet candidate Elumalai on Monday, was serving life imprisonment in “Nellai conspiracy case” during 1952 election. With the Congress failing to get a majority in the polls,

C. Rajagopalachari was brought back from retirement to form the government and he engineered defection from the opposition-led United Democratic Front, he said.

When asked about the difference between the past and the present elections in terms of money power, Nallakannu said distribution of money to voters
is not a recent phenomenon in Tamil Nadu as it dates back to the second general election in 1957 when Congress lured voters with '1, ‘uppma’ and coffee.

“Pavalar Varadarajan, elder brother of music composer Ilayaraja, and also an artiste, who campaigned for Communist party, had even composed a song highlighting Congress party luring voters with '1, uppma and coffee”, Nallakannu, whose long political career spanned over seven decades, said.

Sankaraiah, a three time MLA, deplored that increasing money power in elections would only lead to rich people alone contesting the polls. “That’s why we are demanding electoral reforms, including government funding of all elections. Only then, elections will be free and fair.”

Asked whether the caste-based mobilisation of people had disappeared in recent years, Nallakannu said caste based candidate selection by parties was always there but attempts by “dominant caste” to mobilise people against lower caste was something new.

“Most people are not bothered about caste. Only the dominant caste groups are trying to whip up caste sentiments for selfish reasons. Their attempts will certainly fail,” he said. He said the Assembly elections would be a historic one as a policy-based alternative front, PWA, has been provided to people.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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