Campaign leaders comfortably forgot role model Annadurai

While Anna and Periyar, who was founder of the Dravidian movement in TN, were less spoken about, AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran, and the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa constantly featured in the campaign speeches by national and regional leaders.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his election rally in Chennai after the formation of the mega-alliance led by the AIADMK, invoked the names of MGR and Jayalalithaa while addressing the public and AIADMK cadre.

Modi went a step further wooing the AIADMK faithful by approving the renaming of Chennai Central as Puratchi Thalaivar MGR Chennai Central Railway station.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi showered encomiums on Periyar and offered to send books on the Dravidian ideologue to Modi, stating that the BJP leader did not understand the history of TN culture. Rahul, while recalling the days of DMK leader M Karunanidhi and his contribution to Tamil Nadu, however ignored Anna.

While DMK president M K Stalin occasionally recalled Anna, other state leaders including CM Edappadi K Palaniswami, his deputy O Panneerselvam and AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran chose to recall the days and the administration of MGR and ‘Amma’ without making any references on Anna. Even a Tamil news channel conducted a debate on Tuesday on whether Anna was forgotten during this election.

“Anna is a common leader for both the DMK and AIADMK, but the political parties failed to mention his name during the campaign. This may be a result of the generation gap or just a lapse on the part of political leaders in TN,” opined political commentator and senior journalist A Kumaresan.

Even the public have expressed their disappointment over the issue. According to Arani C Sreenivasan, an activist and a die-hard fan of MGR, “There is no DMK and AIADMK without Anna. The AIADMK and the DMK have committed a mistake by not celebrating the legacy of TN’s iconic leader.”