Legacy in motion, Udhayanidhi fronts ‘Stalin 3.0’ campaign

In the campaign for the April 23 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, this is Udhayanidhi Stalin’s most crucial evening, says an associate. He is among a bunch of party footsoldiers trying to steer a crane into an alley and position it to hoist a sizable garland in honour of the star visitor. On the campaign trail, Udhayanidhi is welcomed in triplicate: as DMK’s youth wing secretary, Deputy Chief Minister, and the son of CM M K Stalin. What goes unstated is that he is the supremo in waiting. The young activist continues to explain why the post-lunch campaign is opening in Andipatti, a dusty old municipal town in Theni district. “Dravidian stalwarts from the rival AIADMK, M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, who between the two kept Udhayanidhi’s grandfather M Karunanidhi out of power for 24 years, were both elected to the Assembly from here. Now, when the DMK is seeking a third successive term, Andipatty must surely be ours. Udhayanidhi is scheduled to end the day’s campaign at an equally political spot in the neighbouring Dindigul district’s Vedasandur (in Dindigul district), for decades a bellwether constituency. We must look unbeatable there.” Is there anything beyond the crane and the garland in a campaign projected as “Stalin 3.0”? Anything new? Wait and see, says the youth wing in chorus. Mercifully the wait isn’t long. Used to summer elections, the party does its crowd engineering gently. Truckloads of people aren’t carted and dumped on a helpless old town. People arrive in smaller lots in locally modified three-wheelers and relax in clusters in the shade sipping bottled water. They need to get up and act only when the campaign cavalcade arrives. Minutes before that happens, elaborate instructions on protocol emerge from the public announcement system. Don’t raise slogans. Don’t wave balloons and flags to block the view. The DMK’s next face must be seen and heard. At 49, Udhayanidhi is even more casually clad and speaks even less formally than his father, who himself is once removed from the Dravidian public speaking tradition. He strikes up a conversational monologue with the crowd. But the easy poll-speak skips nothing. All round welfare assured, every political point scored, including one more bonus point which has just landed from Delhi. “You all know about the BJP’s attempt to pass Bills in Parliament, which will cut down Tamil representation. How can you vote for AIADMK, whose leaders are party to this betrayal? They are prostrating before Modi.” He lifts an A3 print of a photograph showing the obeisance. The party surely has the digital wherewithal to project the picture on a mammoth hoarding. Instead, it is settling for more wieldy images closer to cell phone screen size. The youth wing seems to have sensed a certain fatigue for overwhelming images. The iconic leader faces have been shrunk to pocket placement graphics on T-shirts. Like the metaphoric public speeches, larger than life leader cut-outs are rare. But rule nothing out entirely. The new digital isn’t summarily eclipsing the old analogue. In fact, some priceless vintage campaign material is back with a bang. The grand old Nagore Hanifa song celebrating the “rising sun” party symbol rings out at every corner meeting. Few parties in the country can boast of an older, uninterrupted symbol, not even national parties. It has been there since 1957. Kalaignar Karunanidhi’s grandson won’t miss the symbolism of the rising sun.