For instance, Chief Minister and AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami on Sunday took pains to go all the way to Virudhunagar district, the native of Kamarajar, to attend the late Congress CM’s 116th birth anniversary organised by Nadar Mahajana Sangam.

For his part, DMK working president and Leader of Opposition also issued a lengthy statement on Kamarajar’s anniversary, mostly utilising the opportunity to explain how the late Congress leader was an embodiment of the humility and probity in public life.

That the Congressmen in a western district of Tamil Nadu came to nearly exchanging blows with their BJP counterparts in celebrating Kamarajar’s birth anniversary should explain the unusual traction the former CM’s name had gained this time. Notably, BJP members, especially those owing allegiance to Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan, who also hails from the same Nadar community Kamarajar belonged to, gave their veterans Vajpayee, Advani and even Amit Shah a go by.

The saffron brigade has been staking claim for Kamarajar’s legacy of late. Even wall paintings of Pon Radhakrishnan have only been projecting him as a successor of the humble leader and that too by adding portraits of the former Congress CM in the BJP posters of late, a rare instance when BJP and Congress leaders were on the same page (poster).