Deputy Chief minister M.K.Stalin is not wasting time. He kicked off his campaign unofficially on Saturday, meeting party cadres in his Kolathur constituency. While the opposition camp is yet to finalize seat sharing, he has taken the initiative to do the groundwork for the ensuing assembly election in the newly carved out constituency.
On Saturday morning, Stalin made a surprise visit to the MLA’s office situated in Perambur Madhavaram High Road, where he met over 800 party functionaries and senior leaders of North Chennai with whom he held discussions on poll strategy. Cadres met him in batches of 100, and the meeting lasted more than an hour.
Later he checked the party election office at Paper Mills Road. North Chennai MP TKS Elangovan, sitting MLA V.S.Babu (Purasaiwakkam), who earned party Chief’s admiration for “sacrificing” the seat for his “Thalapathi” and Zonal chairman VSJ Srinivasan were among other leaders who flanked Stalin during the visit. In the 2009 Loksabha elections, DMK organizing secretary TKS Elangovan secured a surprise win in North Chennai constituency, which was considered a stronghold of Left parties. He had trounced the CPI candidate by a huge margin. Kolathur assembly constituency that comprises wards 50 to 54 and 62 fetched a lead of more than 15,000 votes the party during the Lok Sabha elections. Hence, it was selected to field Stalin. Stalin also met Congress President K.V. Thangkabalu, PMK founder Dr Ramdoss and VCK president Thol.