AIADMK shows its strength in Coimbatore

Tamil Nadu‘s main opposition party, AIADMK held a mammoth public meeting in the industrial city of Coimbatore on Tuesday to protest
against price rise and "anti-people policies" of Centre and State Government.
It also used the opportunity to showcase its strength in the Kongu region, considered one of its traditional bastions. The region comprises of Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Salem, Namakkal, Karur and Pollachi.

The protest meeting, which comes barely a fortnight after DMK government organised World Classical Tamil Conference, is being viewed in political circles a counter-show by AIADMK. In Coimbatore district alone the party has nine MLAs from 12 constituencies. IT has four Lok Sabha MPs from the Kongu region ( Tirupur, Karur,Pollachi and Salem). Its ally MDMK has an MP from Erode and CPM one from Coimbatore. The protest rally was also aimed at galvanising the party cadre for the upcoming assembly election next year.

Party general secretary, J Jayalalithaa led the stir highlighting issues like frequent increase in fuel prices, shortfall in agriculture production, high inflation, spiraling prices of essential commodities, severe power shortage, ill effects of online trading, rampant sale of fake and time expired medicines and deteriorating law and order situation in the State.

She also lashed out at DMK government’s populist schemes like Rs 1 per kg rice, free colour TV and health insurance scheme stating that "they were mainly devised to facilitate business opportunities for the family of the TN chief minister, M Karunanidhi." While being critical of the DMK government and its rule in the last four years, Ms Jayalalithaa urged the party cadres to kick start the election work and assured them that she would decide on forging an alliance reflecting their wishes.

"This is election year and let us take the pledge to start working towards bringing back MGR rule in the State," she told the huge gathering amidst thunderous applause. Like the Tamil conference extravaganza, the demonstration by AIADMK also brought the textile city to a standstill for a few hours in the afternoon. "Kongu region is our stronghold and with this mobilisation of huge crowd, we have proved that we are still the strongest party
here," AIADMK MLA Se Ma Velusamy told.

Busloads of people from across Tamil Nadu descended in Coimbatore to take part in the demonstration. In her long address, Ms Jayalalithaa listed out 54 points against the Centre and State government. According to intelligence sources the total assembled crowd inside the VOC stadium would be around two lakhs.