Vijayakanth, the messiah of the rural youth
Watching the campaign of Captain's party was a group of young men in a corner. All of them belonged to the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI). "Only after Thirumalvalavan started DPI, we Dalits got united and became courageous enough to speak. So, we will only vote for whoever he asks us to. He is with the ADMK, so our votes are for them. Had he been with the DMK, we would have voted for the DMK." Barati, a young man who is a party member, said.
He also had interesting statistics to quote, "In the beginning, only 2% of the Dalits voted for the DPI. Now, 80% of all the Dalits are with us."
Mention of this statistic angers Sampath Kumar, another DPI sympathiser. He butts in: "He is wrong. It is not 80 per cent. Ninety per cent of all Dalits are with the DPI."
Raja, the village head summed up the situation thus: "Though I am not supposed to say who I sympathise with, I will tell you. I have been voting for the ADMK. I don’t interfere with the party affiliations of my people but I see to it that there are no clashes in my village."
According to him, in his village, it is advantage ADMK but he admitted that Captain is getting a lot of goodwill. "But he has not reached a stage where he can win an election. On the other hand, because Amma has helped people here when the rains hit us hard, she will win."
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