Chennai: The Assembly elections unveil an interesting tussle for chief ministership by at least four major contenders and BJP, which has not named its CM candidate; and is far too different from the previous elections especially 2011 dominated by 2G scam.
The state this time is witnessing various combinations that have all drawn battle lines to challenge CM J. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK merely on one common issue — change of rule and good governance.
Strangely, small parties like Naam Tamilar Katchi, headed by Seeman, also talk of good governance. Though the saffron party was the first to give a call to establish good governance and corruption-free governance in 2014 Lok Sabha election and followed it up in this Assembly election, the PMK took the lead this time by launching its own campaign in style to bring a change of guard.
Then it was the turn of Vaiko’s PWA which roped in Vijayakanth’s DMDK and G. K. Vasan’s TMC to talk of dislodging the ruling AIADMK and providing corruption-free governance.
The DMK, which has launched a scathing attack on AIADMK’s handling of the Chennai flood situation, hopes to gain by the anti-incumbency factor. TNCC chief E. V. K. S. Elangovan, an acerbic critic of Jayalalithaa, has also targeted the deaths at her election rallies while BJP state president Tamilisai Soundararajan even ridiculed that the AIADMK supremo could as well address the rallies through video conferencing and avoid fatalities.
The high decibel campaign targets the woman CM and total prohibition and freebies come next. And as so many cannons boom at her, Jayalalithaa is capable of taking on all her political adversaries single-handedly and banks heavily on her development initiatives.
In a state that has a remarkable history of being dominated by Dravidian majors, the national party – BJP - did make ripples when its chief Amit Shah trained his guns on AIADMK accusing it as the most corrupt government in the country.
