Jayalalithaa cautious, M Karunanidhi optimistic about win

Despite being a multi cornered contest, AIADMK cadre believe that the tide is in their favour. “Where is anti-incumbency?” a party functionary at Villivakkam asked. Drawing a comparison between 2011 and 2016, he said that the anti-incumbency factor was completely missing now. 

“In 2011, the anti-incumbency mood against the ‘all in all’ (involved in all businesses) DMK was evident but there is not even a trace of it now,” he said. According to him, DMK’s flip-flop on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue and DMK leaders’ involvement in 2G scam still remains fresh in the minds of people. 

AIADMK functionaries said that people do not feel for a need of an alternative. “The corrupt and family-owned DMK can never be an alternative to AIADMK,” they chorused. The party cadre feel that DMK’s promise to provide a corruption free governance was laughable. “Even most of the opinion polls favoured AIADMK and this clearly shows that we are clearly at an advantage,” he said.

People who had followed DMK would know that the party had never liked high voter turnout but, that was not the case on Monday. DMK men were closely tracking the steady rise in poll percentage this time. 

A DMK senior close to party Treasurer MK Stalin said; “The higher the better. It would be ours if poll percentage touches 80.” And this was at 1.30 pm, when the state average hovered around the 42 per cent mark. 

It was not difficult to sense exuberance in the statements of DMK leaders during brisk polling early in the day. While party President M Karunanidhi realistically said, “We would get required number of seats (to form government),” his ambitious party treasurer-son MK Stalin reiterated the usual “we win all” and his Rajya Sabha MP daughter Kanimozhi insisted that a decisive verdict favouring the DMK was on the cards.

The enthusiasm came down when the state recorded a meagre six percentile rise from 3 pm to 5 pm. A senior leader who claimed independent majority earlier, said in the evening that; “Predictions give us an edge. But, let us wait. We should be able to form government, but the victory margins will be slender.” 

Though it might be premature, initial indications suggest that the DMK might scrape through, if one factors in the conspicuous absence of DMDK-PWF-TMC alliance in the cities and the “vote for change” voice, which was loudly heard outside polling booths in all but the northern pockets. 

Again, the young voters may have got on the nerves of DMK leaders, who expected Gen Y to choose them over the Vijayakant-led front.