Mumbai: Party workers and office bearers of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in the city said that even though the party was preparing in full swing to contest the 2017 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, J. Jayalalithaa’s demise had left their plans hanging by a thread. They said they were unsure if they would have the will to contest the elections this time.
AIADMK had got official recognition in Maharashtra back in 2007 and had fought the last BMC elections in 2012 in pockets with heavy Tamil speaking population such as Malad, Sion-Koliwada and Dharavi. This again was a deliberate move by the party, as the BJP with whom it sympathises the most in the state did not contest from these wards.
An active party worker Raja Thevur said that even though there was a small but significant amount of voters in these areas, Amma had given strict instructions that we should not align with any major party and should go at it alone in the next elections, he said. “There was a feeling in the last elections that we will work harder the next time and bring more people to the party but that we won’t align with any of the major parties, since there are ideological differences with them.”
He further added, “Now we are a little lost, with the BMC elections right at our doorstep and Amma leaving us we can only wait and watch. We fear the movement in the city may lose its steam.”
To bring more people to the party the AIADMK had slowly and steadily began to hold membership drives, convincing the Tamil speaking or any other language-speaking population who shared the same ideology, to join the party and vote for it. One of these new recruits was Shivan Raju who has been inducted into the party as a legal aid. “I am part of the team that handles issues such as offices taken on rent and registrations of our officers across Mumbai, among others. In the past one year, we have registered one office at Kharghar as we have a lot of supporters from the nearby suburb of Nerul with the total number of offices now being 65 in the city today.”
The AIADMK’s city deputy general secretary A. Balakrishnan has confessed that he has no idea regarding the future of the party. “Earlier, city leaders would go and meet Amma every three months in Chennai; she would take a keen interest in knowing the dynamics here but now all I can say is we will have to wait, as we don’t have a choice.”
