Vellore

Plastered across the entrance of the shop located at Kagithapattarai on Arcot Road is a huge poster thanking Chief Minister Stalin for Rs 2,000 the government provided to ration card holders recently. What irked AIADMK cadre was that the poster also carried pictures of MLAs P Karthikeyan (Vellore), AP Nandakumar (Anaicut), MP Kadhir Anand and former MP Mohammed Saqhy in addition to pictures of Stalin and his son Udhayanidhi.

Not to be left out, the BJP also pasted a huge poster - of similar size on the side wall with pictures of its Tamil Nadu leaders, including former president L Murugan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi - thanking the BJP government for providing vaccines to Tamil Nadu.

What surprised AIADMK cadres was the BJP also getting into the poster culture now. Earlier as a national party they had refrained from such tactics. The BJP and AIADMK maintaining their distance with each other has led to the latter not knowing who put up the poster for the alliance party.

When an infuriated AIADMK Vellore district secretary M Moorthy pulled up the salesman demanding to know why he allowed the posters on the shop walls, the latter replied that it was done when the shop was closed. Moorthy threatened that if the trend continued then the AIADMK would also follow suit. The shopkeeper did not reply.

While putting up portraits of incumbent CMs was done only in government offices, this is the first time that this malaise has entered ration shops. When this reporter asked an official about this, the latter refused to reply.