Amid being surfaced with intra-party furor and external allegations, the Tamil Nadu ruling ADMK party is all set for the upcoming assembly polls, the first for Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister. With the days for the current assembly are numbered, the ruling party has now installed a panel to chalk out its manifestos for the 2021 election and to counter the rivals in the race for the reign. 

The ADMK has formed committees to strategize and prepare the electoral manifesto in a way that would help the party to retain power in the middle of addressing the uncertainty and distress in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The committee for the manifesto, comprising of senior leaders and ministers, would also work out to frame the campaign across the state. 

According to reports close to the developments, about half of the cabinet has been inducted in the committees to determine the overall strategy. The committee to frame the election manifesto consists of party leaders representing all regions and communities and the leaders have been instructed to put forth the programmes to cover all sections of people.

Speaking to media, senior ADMK leader and former state minister Ponnaiyan, who chairs the manifesto committee, said that the party would frame the manifesto with populist schemes keeping welfare and development in mind. The former minister claimed that the party will evolve policies and programmes with the aim of forming the next government. The minister further stated that Congress and BJP are anti-Tamils when it comes to the causes that the Tamil people are more concerned with. 

As this is the first state election for Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister, the ruling party has strongly been eyeing to retain the stronghold across the state after facing an unprecedented defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls due to its abysmal performance. With the aim of letting the opposition concede the defeat, the ADMK leaders would strongly use and pitch the mantra of Jayalalithaa in the campaign to cover up a larger voter base. 

The current rulers have been, amid the recently-witnessed tussle, using Jayalalithaa's face and fame to help them emerge victorious in the upcoming polls. By having Jayalalithaa as a powerful mantra, the leaders would frame the manifesto with the prefix of the late leader's manifesto in 2016. The reports say that the state ruling party would press her schemes in the manifesto including waiver of farm loans for small and marginal peasants, a sovereign of gold for women for marriage, free power, subsidized scooters for women, and government-run institutions under the name of 'Amma'.

Along with setting up the manifesto committee, the ADMK has also formed a media team to address the media about the party's achievements and to retort the allegations from the opposition. According to reports, the media team consists of seven members including senior ministers P Thangamani, D Jayakumar, R Kamaraj, RB Udhayakumar, K Pandiarajan, and senior leaders. 

The nine-member committee has also been formed to counter the opposition statements during the elections and some of the members of this committee include Ponnaiyan, Jayakumar, C Vijayabaskar, and Deputy assembly speaker Pollachi Jayaraman. Senior minister Jayakumar, who is the mouth-piece of the Chief Minister, said that the committee will counter back the opposition and against the false allegations that are leveled at the ruling party.

On the other hand, ADMK's main rival DMK has been hoping to take over the reign in the state after a decade. The opposition party has been keeping the hope on Stalin's son Udhayanidhi as the actor turned politician has been touring the ADMK's stronghold of Kongu belt, the western region of the state. Last week, Udhayanidhi had campaigned in some of the western districts with the view of destabilizing the ruling party's stronghold ahead of the election. With the heated political fight, the state is getting ready to witness the political Diwali with firing crackers of controversies and counter-politics.