As the state of Tamil Nadu is fast-approaching the first legislative elections since the demise of political giants Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, the political parties in the state have been preparing for the polls amid the extraordinary times and challenges brought by the pandemic. With the absence of a perfect replacement for the departed leaders, the elections would see the emergence of a new face, which is going to make the political debut through the polls. 

With the race to the reign is getting multi-tracked, the two Dravidian parties are mulling to take the reign and to become successors for the departed leaders. This would be the first legislative election for Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister and he strongly hopes to become the face of the party after Jayalalithaa amid the intra-party rivals. In the midst of the tight and unprecedented race, the leaders of the state ruling ADMK are preparing to hit the campaign trail to take on the rivals and to have a significant breakthrough in the new year. 

With the view of covering the entire state ahead of the assembly polls, the ADMK leaders would be launching the campaign from January 2021. According to reports, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister Panneerselvam will hit the campaign trail in January with a big plan of reaching the voters to retain the reign. The leaders would start the campaign around Pongal and both of them had made arrangements for the campaign vehicles. 

The reports say that the leaders are expecting that the election commission would issue the notification in March and schedule the assembly election in the third week of April. It's most likely that ADMK would keep the alliance intact and when it goes to the campaign by carrying BJP on its back, it would be pushed to induct popular faces in the party to meet the voters amid the allegations thrown on the BJP and the ruling party. Having said that, the ADMK would eye to join hands with Rajinikanth with ADMK Chief co-ordinator Panneerselvam admitting the possibilities of an alliance with the superstar. 

Amid the souring alliance with the PMK, that powered by the recent dispute over the 20% reservation quota for the Vanniyar community in the government jobs, the ADMK mulls to bring some of the supportive outfits to its camp. Both Palaniswami and Panneerselvam have planned to start the campaign in January to cover all the areas, like how the party's rival leader MK Stalin has planned. The reports say the ADMK's annual general council and executive committee meeting would be held by the end of December.

It has been expected that during the meeting, the high-level panels would be authorizing the leadership to decide on the issues concerning the alliance and seat-sharing with the allied parties. On Monday, both the leaders convened the one-on-one meeting with the district secretaries and zonal in charge for more than three hours. During the meeting, the reports say that the leaders took stock of the organization and its strength in the assembly constituencies.

The leaders had instructed the secretaries to strengthen the grassroots bodies including booth level committees, women committees, and IT wing teams in all the wards. As the upcoming assembly polls would witness a heated political race with Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan joining the track, the ADMK believes that Jayalalithaa's legacy could help them in garnering votes and to retain the reign, amid being queued up with a pile of internal and external allegations. 

A senior ADMK leader revealed that the voters would endorse and elect ADMK for its good governance and welfare schemes. He claimed that people will vote for the party as it stands with them. The ADMK government has kept people happy for the last four years and it has effectively succeeded in the pandemic. The reports say that the ADMK has asked its members to take on the DMK by circulating the latter's scams and corruptions including the 2G scam. However, ADMK would also be bracing up the challenges brought by Sasikala's release from the disproportionate assets case in which Jayalalithaa was the first accused. 

It must be noted that the party had conducted its last executive committee meeting in September during which the behind-the-screen dispute between Palaniswami and Panneerselvam became a strong revolt under the light as both had dissented before the senior leaders in the race for the party's CM candidate. Eventually, Palaniswami won the race and became the CM candidate and he is just months away to know whether the voters wish to keep him as their Chief Minister.