Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that his party BJP wins the maximum Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu.
From regular visits to the southern heartland and evoking Tamil cultural icons to giving an interview to a prominent regional channel, the Prime Minister is making every effort to strengthen the BJP in the state.
Just before the consecration of the Ram Lalla idol at the Ayodhya temple, PM Modi had gone to Rameswaram and Tiruchi -- the temple towns of Tamil Nadu.
He has publicly hit out at the DMK and slammed the ruling party for dynasty politics. He even dubbed the DMK a '5G party' -- a satirical reference to the dominance of the fifth generation of the Karunanidhi family in the DMK.
The Prime Minister has also lashed out at the DMK over the recent seizure of a huge consignment of narcotics, saying that Tamil Nadu is "turning into a hub of drugs".
Besides direct interactions, he had also reached out to the grassroots-level party workers through the NaMo app and interacted with them for a couple of hours.
The BJP is aiming to win at least four seats in Tamil Nadu -- Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari, and Madurai.
The party is also aiming to win a few more seats in the state and has zeroed in on Virudhanagar and Nilgiris, and is expecting its ally PMK to win the Dharmapuri seat for the NDA.
Prime Minister Modi's interaction with a popular Tamil channel will be aired on Sunday evening and political observers are seeing this as a move to convey his message directly to a larger audience in the southern state.
C. Rajeev, Director, Centre for Policy and Development Studies, a Chennai-based think-tank, told IANS: "Prime Minister Modi is giving special attention to Tamil Nadu and has been in the state six times in the recent months. He is not just visiting here, but is also evoking the cultural and religious icons of the state and has even directly interacted with the party workers."
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