Political parleys continue in Tamil Nadu amid pandemic as 2021 Assembly election approaches. Both the ruling AIADMK and Opposition DMK held official meeting on Friday to prepare the cadres for the upcoming election.

DMK, which is out of power for a decade, the 2021 Assembly elections seems to be a ‘doordie’ battle. MK Stalin is tutoring district level leaders for a grass root level campaign, focusing on neutral or undecided voters.

Meanwhile, the ruling AIADMK, which faces clashes within the party is trying hard to weed it out by calling a meeting at the party headquarters on Friday which was attended by chief minister Edappdy K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam.

With V K Sasikala, the closest aid of former party supremo J Jayalalithaa is expected to be released from jail in January next year, the party is in a hurry to burry the hatchet if differences erupt inside the party.

After the meeting on Friday, Palaniswami and Panneerselvam announced that the AIADMK’s executive committee meeting has been scheduled here for 28 September.

The AIADMK is apparently facing crucial issues as the 11 member steering committee to guide the party, which was proposed to be constituted when the faction led by O Panneerselvam merged with the one led by chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami three years ago, is unlikely to materialise for some more time. But both the leaders have decided to visit the party headquarters twice a week to meet the functionaries and the cadre.

When Panneerselvam arrived at the AIADMK headquarters, cadre raised slogans hailing him as permanent chief minister and Jayalalithaa’s political heir. Similarly when Palaniswami arrived, the cadre also hailed him as the permanent CM, champion of farmers’ cause and ‘Chanakya’, who points out the real state of party affairs.

After the meeting, Palaniswami and Panneerselvam sat for about 20 minutes separately. Sources from the party said that while Panneerselvam insisted a 11 member steering committee to be formed, EPS resisted it pointing out that the formation of such committee at this juncture may trigger unnecessary political tug of war among the aspirants.

As per sources, there were intense discussions on certain issues, both the leaders insisted that the functionaries and cadre should stand united in preventing the DMK from coming to power.

Meanwhile, the DMK workers are collecting village level data about the welfare schemes which the party had created during its stints in power. This data will then be shared with the party’s IT wing for wide dissemination.

As part of the effort, the party’s district secretaries have conducted meeting s with cadres at village level and instructed them on microlevel election works as per the strategies shared by party chief MK Stalin during a recent video-conference.

The workers are being instructed to carry out door-to-door voter verification and get details of committed voters and neutral or undecided voters and introduce them on welfare measures decided by DMK to woo them based on it.