Chennai

The ‘darling’ of the media is playing truant not elsewhere, but in Virugambakkam itself where he resides. DT Next made a check on the Captain’s backyard only to find that the CM candidate of the DMDK-PWF-TMC alliance and his rabble-rouser wife Premalatha have not visited the street next to their youth wing secretary LK Sudhish’s (Premalatha’s brother) residence, let alone embark on a door-to-door campaign. But they may say they have some time left for that. 

Significantly, Vijayakant’s headquarters secretary and sitting MLA B Parthasarathy is taking on not just local heavyweights Dhanasekaran of DMK, Virugai VN Ravi of AIADMK but also media savvy state BJP president Tamilisai Soundarajan in the urban Chennai segment. Such a close contest did not prompt a barnstorming tour in the locality by the politician couple who are busy camping in Ulundurpet to save face, more so after forecasts predicted a difficult election for the Captain himself. 

“Yes. Vijayakant lives here, but neither he nor his party men have come out. Only DMK and AIADMK candidates have come knocking at our doors,” Abu Backar of Dasarathapuram, which is hardly 200 metres from Sudhish’s house, told this correspondent just when PMK candidate CH Jayarao waved his hands at onlookers from an open van in the busy market late on Friday evening.  

“Will people vote if he does not step out of his house? If Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi can go campaigning, what prevents him? May be he knows the result,” said tea shop owner Bagyanathan of Venakatesa Nagar, suggesting that the Captain may have staged a retreat even before the actual battle began. 

Incidentally, 93-year-old Karunanidhi campaigned for his candidate Dhanasekaran, whose rival VN Ravi sent his lieutenants to deliver pamphlets door to door in Sayee Nagar and Chinmaya Nagar on Saturday afternoon. Repeated attempts to reach either Parthasarathy or Sudhish proved futile. Enquiries made with party insiders revealed that “mission Ulundurpet” has kept their leader confined to that area. 

Journalist and political commentator R Mani says; “Reports from Ulundurpet must have disturbed the Vijayakants. May be Captain has learnt a lesson or two. He will learn more in the days to come.”

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