72 hours left, focus shifts to micro-level canvassing

Autorickshaw’s with loudspeakers are now ruling the roost covering the narrow roads and congested settlements. The micro-level campaign by the AIADMK, AMMK and DMK had picked up pace with poll managers conducting the daily audit on the door to campaign. Daily briefings have changed for the party workers now going the extra mile to reach out to the voters.

Speeches of late AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 asking the voters to decide between the Tamil Nadu’s lady and Gujarat’s Modi has become relevant and handy for the rebel AMMK candidates now. Both the ruling AIADMK and the rebel AMMK play common songs of AIADMK founder MGR in their campaign vehicle, but when it comes to Jayalalithaa speeches, there is a change in content between the sulking factions.

The AIADMK has chosen the Jaya’s speeches targeting the DMK’s first family and issues pertaining to alleged 2G scam. For the AMMK, the rhetoric by Jayalalithaa targeting BJP leader Modi is played in all the campaign autos dispatched by AMMK candidates. The AMMK functionaries are also conducting special sessions for their door-to-door campaigners on the failure of pre-poll survey results released by the media houses.

“We tell voters that pre-poll surveys have turned damp squib in the United States and in TN. Surveys in TN has been a failure for years. The 2011 survey said the DMK was coming back to power and again the media said that the DMK will form the government in 2016, put these facts before the voters,” said north Chennai AMMK candidate P Santhanakrishnan during a briefing.