Chennai: Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa tested the loyalty of partymen who sought ticket to fight the forthcoming assembly election with tricky questions. "Were you in the 'J' faction or 'JA' faction?" was the question. Many candidates were stumped initially but they regained composure and replied frankly.
The question pertained to the 1989 situation after the death of party founder MG Ramachandran. The party split - one led by Jayalalithaa (AIADMK-Jayalalitha group) and the other by Janaki (AIADMK- Janaki Ramachandran). Both the factions fought the elections, but won only a few seats.
Jayalithaa asked nearly 50-odd candidates among the prospective candidates of southern districts, Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Ramanathapuram. Aspirants from other districts would be interviewed later.
The Monday interviews came close on the heels of allegations surfacing over senior functionaries and their coteries extorting money from the aspirants to get poll tickets, and facing the heat. They either fell from grace or dropped from party panels. The party units in the home turfs of senior ministers O Panneerselvam, Natham R Viswanathan and P Palaniappan have been revamped in the past 10 days, apparently signalling that all is not well for the seniors.
On Monday, Jayalalithaa handled the interviews herself, but with only two to three from each constituency. The partymen, who were sent out invites over phone from her residence on Sunday, were in for a surprise. "With no functionaries around, she threw questions to aspirants herself. We were put at ease from the time we entered her chamber on the first floor. Our leader did not disappoint us," said a candidate. The questions included how much they could afford to spend for the election and how long they were with the party, and their current positions in the organisation.
The candidates were allotted numbers and allowed inside her residence in a batch of 50. In the evening, a four-member election panel, joined by Panneerselvam and Viswanathan had talks at party headquarters with representatives of 55 organisations extending support to the ruling party.
