Upbeat AIADMK cadre line up for party

A day after AIADMK announced the date inviting applications from candidates aspiring to contest the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, several party cadres thronged the headquarters in Chennai and submitted their applications on Sunday. Most of them filed the applications on behalf of their party general secretary J Jayalalithaa requesting her to contest from their own constituencies. The party had fixed a fee of Rs 10,000 for each candidate contesting from Tamil Nadu.

While the DMK front is yet to smoothen out hitches with allies and kick off seat sharing talks, AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa appears to be speeding ahead, sealing pacts, finalizing seat sharing talks and kicking off poll process in its own party.

Although an official release said the applications would be accepted at the AIADMK headquarters from 11.30 am to 7 pm till February 18, there was a huge turnover on Day one indicating an upbeat mood in the party. "In the last assembly election, there were approximately 40 candidates from each constituency in the total 234 constituency in the state. But this year we expect more than that. The number can even go up to 80," said a senior leader in the party.

Since there was strict instruction from the party asking the candidates to use only application forms provided by the AIADMK headquarters, a huge crowd was visible from 11.30 am with duly filled application forms until 7 pm. The non refundable fee collections are also meant to be start up fund for the party's election expenses.

A couple of years ago, a practising advocate approached the Madras High Court to direct the city police to register a criminal case against the AIADMK party for having failed to either give him a party ticket to contest the 2006 assembly'polls or return the deposit amount. The case was, however, withdrawn after the AIADMK maintained that deposits were accepted only with a condition that they would not be refunded in case of non-allotment of seat.