Fielding questions about the future of the PMK after its unsatisfactory performance in the urban local bodies elections, its youth wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss in an interview to The Hindu on Wednesday appeared confident that the party will emerge to be a key player in Tamil Nadu politics. He felt the BJP’s ‘growth’ in the State was a media creation. Earlier in the day, he released the party’s shadow agricultural budget for Tamil Nadu, setting aside ₹7 0,000 crore. He proposed increasing the number of procurement centres from 2,654 to 3,500 and increasing grain procurement from 39.39 lakh tonnes to 60 lakh tonnes, among other things. Excerpts
What is your assessment of the PMK’s performance in the urban local bodies elections?
The outcome of the urban local bodies elections is a victory for us... Where we didn’t have any vote earlier, we have (polled) votes now. We are a rural party. In the last Assembly election and the rural local bodies elections, we had our own share of votes and a respectable victory. In the local bodies elections, people tend to vote for the ruling party. This has been the trend right from 1996 [in 2019, the DMK outperformed the then ruling AIADMK in the rural civic polls]. And in this local bodies elections, money was the only factor. Thousands of crores of rupee was splurged by the DMK and the AIADMK. The ruling party also coerced a lot of candidates into withdrawing their nominations. Our candidates couldn’t compete with the money and muscle power of the ruling party. Yet, we have won seats in corporations and town panchayats.
