Voters in the state are politically sharp and can see through such narratives, said Rajaa, asserting that Tamil Nadu is instead witnessing a strong pro-incumbency wave under Chief Minister M K Stalin, powered by delivery on governance, welfare schemes, and farmer-centric interventions, which he said have created deep trust among the electorate ahead of the polls.
Edited excerpts:
The AIADMK and the BJP both claim they’re sensing a strong anti-incumbency wave on the ground. While your party is already talking about Dravidian Model 2.0. You think this is going to be an easy battle?
Anti-incumbency is for the National Democratic Alliance, which is in power in Delhi and has not given enough to Tamil Nadu. The people of Tamil Nadu know that the NDA has been against the state’s development in many ways.
Whatever schemes we bring, they try to stall. Funds that we deserve, which rightfully belong to us, have also been denied. In fact, they are going a step further by trying to threaten the people of Tamil Nadu.
Like what Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in Madurai, that only if you vote for the BJP you will get metro funds, which is absolutely disgusting.
The people of Tamil Nadu have seen through this. So, the real anti-incumbency is against those in Delhi who have no real understanding of what the people of Tamil Nadu actually need.
Here in Tamil Nadu, there is a very strong pro-incumbency wave. If you watch my campaign now, women are clearly saying that only M K Stalin should win. This kind of euphoria among women is something that has probably not been seen in decades in Tamil Nadu politics.
That is the kind of emotional bond our leader MK Stalin has created with the people of Tamil Nadu, especially women. This is a huge pro-incumbency wave, and the anti-incumbency is against the NDA.
Chief Minister MK Stalin’s ‘Delhi versus Tamil Nadu’ pitch is a macro narrative but state elections are often decided by local concerns. In Mannargudi, are voters really thinking about that?
Of course, the people of Tamil Nadu are extremely politically savvy. People often say that those in Mannargudi sit and talk about stuff in Moscow. It goes back to the days of the Communist Party, which had a very strong footing here.
Politics runs deep in Tamil Nadu—people are very politically savvy and every household carries some lineage or loyalty to a party. So, what’s happening in Delhi is being seen and noted very clearly by the people of Tamil Nadu.
People know that Delhi is denying our due share in revenues and in finances. And, they know that only if ‘Thalapathy’ MK Stalin is voted to power will there be a defensive wall against the atrocities of Delhi and the BJP, to be precise.
Tamil Nadu's growth story is remarkable but a lot of this growth is coming in from services and high-end manufacturing. But you're representing an agrarian constituency and agriculture growth is virtually flat or even negative. You think the farmers are left out in Tamil Nadu's growth story? No, it's not that. We've seen bumper crops. How do you think we've got bumper crops? It's record crops every single year, consecutively. Even this year, we had record crops. So, the idea behind manufacturing growth being high, the cause is the investment promotion that's been done over the last five years. While India is growing at 4 per cent, we are growing at 14.74 per cent or something.
So, the kind of growth that the Dravidian model has been able to instigate or start up here in Tamil Nadu, under our leader M K Stalin, has been unmatched and unprecedented. If you look at farmer’s welfare, we have built the highest number of godowns. We’ve been making sure that procurement is not a problem. Because when you have a bumper crop, you do have an issue here or there, especially during rainy season. So, we’ve built the largest number of godowns.
Farmer’s paddy procurement price has gone up to ₹3,000. And now we’re pushing that up to ₹3,500 via our manifesto.
And we’re also looking at how the BJP in Delhi is trying to curtail or cancel the free electricity that we’re giving to farmers. As a pre-emptive measure, our leader MK Stalin has announced that we’ll be changing every single borewell, every single pump in deep bores and in wells. Because of that, we’ll be saving a huge amount of power. The farmer will also get better delivery of water.
Our leader understands what the farmer needs. And that’s what we are delivering every single day.
The Opposition is going full throttle with the charge that the DMK is a party of dynasts. Your party has fielded 31 such candidates this time. You also come from an influential family. Your dad was a former Union Minister. Do you see being a dynast as a disadvantage in an election where new entrants are trying to disrupt the space?
In politics, your initials don’t matter. During poll day, what matters is your performance. And if and only if the candidate, whoever that is, has been with the people of that constituency and has worked for them for a while at least and delivered some results, only then will the people actually look at them as a possibility. Especially more so, if the candidate has already been elected, so they look at the performance. Initials don’t matter. Maybe, in the initial stages, it matters to get the spotlight, yes.
But in a party like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which is a massive party, one of the largest in India, and it has members in every single booth, booth development, booth digital agent in every single booth, no other party has this. In a democratically run party like this, where the leader calls himself the ‘talamai thondan’, the chief cadre, he is the party leader as well as part of the cadre itself.
In a party like this, you cannot throw your weight saying that you are somebody’s son. Look at my leader itself. He has toiled so hard from a very young age, and after 50 years of active politics, he became the Chief Minister. And he has seen what it takes to be with the people and to earn their love.
Even our Deputy Chief Minister was given the chance to contest. He went to every single house in Triplicane, every single slum there, every single high-rise there and every place. He delivered on promises, and then look at what he did with the sports ministry.
You put the mic to any of the people in Tamil Nadu. Go and ask them who the previous sports minister was. Anybody over the years. Just ask them to name one other sports minister. Nobody will remember any sports minister. But they will all say Udhayanidhi Stalin delivered on his promises.
He toiled, he worked, he focused, he made sure that every single sports person was handled. He lifted them up. And today Tamil Nadu is on the map for top sports persons in India, one of the best destinations for sporting abilities to be built. So unless you toil, unless you work hard, the people of Tamil Nadu who are extremely politically savvy will reject you unless they see hard work, good work, and progressive work.
Given the crowds Vijay is attracting, is the DMK underestimating his impact, particularly the youth and women? I know you have called him a product Delhi has placed on the shelf.
Circus always attracts a lot of crowd. So what we’re seeing there is a circus. What we’re trying to do here is good governance. What people need today is good governance.
And people know who is capable of delivering good governance. Our leader has proven over the years, over these last four or five years, especially even during COVID, when he entered a COVID ward with a mask and everything, he showed that he will be there with them, come what may, and not stay at home. He will always be there with the people.
What the people of Tamil Nadu today need is somebody who will be there at every single turning point in their lives and who will look at the progress around the world and make tweaks accordingly to make sure the people of Tamil Nadu consistently get growth.
So this time it is always going to be about growth, it is going to be about continuity, and more than anything, trust. People trust in MK Stalin and that is going to give us a massive victory.
