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Vijaykant stays away from AIADMK Front's joint rally

Coimbatore | Wednesday, Apr 6 2011 IST

Actor-politician Vijayakanth was conspicuous by his absence as the opposition AIADMK organised a joint rally with the leaders of its allies, seeking to dispel the ruling DMK's criticism that leaders of its alliance parties can never share a dais.

The reports suggested that Mr Vijayakanth would share the dais with Ms Jayalalithaa and silence the DMK's criticism. But the actor did not turn up for the rally.

Though the AIADMK has not made any official announcement about the joint rally, but there were great expectations among cadres of the two parties that the actor would come for the rally and share the dais with Jaya. But they were disappointed lot.

Barring Mr Vijayakanth, leaders of all the allies, including CPI(M) National Secretary Prakash Karat, CPI leaders A B Bardhan, D Raja, Manithaneya Makkal Katchi Jawaharulla, Puthiya Tamizhagam founder-leader K Krishnasamy, All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi leader actor Sarathkumar and All India Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam leader N Sethuraman were present.

However, Mr Vijayakanth, who deputed party Presidium Chairman and former AIADMK Miniser Panruti S Ramachandran, chose to campaign for the front in Nagapattinam district, the eastern part of the state.

After deciding to forge alliance with the AIADMK for the April 13 Assembly elections, Mr Vijayakanth had met Ms Jayalalithaa only once at her Poes Garden Residence to sign the seat sharing agreement after AIADMK allotted 41 seats.

Later, the DMDK leaders, dissatisfied with the allocation of seats, had prolonged talks with Ms Jayalalithaa, but Mr Vijayakanth kept away.

When all the alliance party leaders met Ms Jayalalithaa at her Poes Garden residence and signed the agreements, after the seats were identified, Mr Vijayakanth did not turn up. Instead, the papers were sent to him for his signature.

Local DMDK leaders initially said Mr Vijayakanth would change his tour programme and take part in the rally, but this morning, ruled out his presence, stating that the party would be represented by Mr Ramachandran.

For long his detractors have been reviling him as one with a bloated ego who often loses his cool presenting himself in a poor light on the political stage. And actor-politico Vijaykant appears to have provided fodder to them with his alleged filmyact during the election campaign.

His alleged thrashing of a party candidate in full public glare has created a flutter and rattled even his admirers. The incident, repeatedly telecast on channels with pro-DMK leanings, happened at Dharmapuri on Tuesday. Right from the Sun TV network to Karunanidhi's family-owned Kalaignar TV and the PMK founder Ramadoss' Makkal TV aired the visuals the whole day. Well, the DMK camp appeared to have been waiting for 'Captain', as the actor is called by his supporters, to commit the faux pas.

Thus far there is no regret from the actor and the DMDK expectedly swung into his defence saying he was irritated at the repeated failure of the public address system and had only chided the operator. But the damage has already been done as the visuals found its way to the cyberspace. The visuals showed Vijaykant thrashing his party's candidate for Dharmapuri constituency, A Bhaskaran, for correcting him. For, the actor is being heard seeking votes for a non-existent Pandiyan. Clearly, he seems to have got wrong the name of the nominee of his own party. It all happened atop the campaign vehicle of the actor, who was accompanied by the candidate. Poor Bhaskaran had reportedly tried to correct his party boss, fearing that the voters would be left confused as to whether the DMDK had replaced its candidate. It had happened in a few other places after the party had released the list.

The matinee idol had launched the DMDK only to make political capital out of his huge fan following. But, he had been criticised as a drunkard. In an uncharitable remark, Jayalalithaa had termed him an alcoholic to which he countered asking whether the AIADMK leader had filled his cup. That has returned to haunt him as he joined the Jayalalithaa bandwagon now. This has come in handy for his bete noire and comedian Vadivelu, who is now a star campaigner for the DMK. If this was not enough, Vijaykant's stinging criticism of the PMK as "a casteist outfit which switches alliances like a monkey jumping on to trees" has backfired. The PMK leader has questioned the actor aligning with Jayalalithaa after claiming all these days that he would not 'pledge' his self respect by joining any front for a few seats.