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    Modi Anna: Veshti-clad Modi sends another friendly overture to Tamil Nadu

    Synopsis

    Political analysts view Modi's recent attitude to accord importance to Tamil sentiments and highlight the classical language status as an attempt to make amends to overcome the perception that BJP is a 'North Indian party'.

    ET Bureau
    Chennai: Clad in a white shirt, dhoti and angavasthram and sipping coconut water with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent another friendly overture to Tamil Nadu, which has spurned the overtures of the BJP and used rebellious hashtags on twitter every time he visited the state.

    Modi had extolled Tamil virtues at the recent UN address by quoting Sangam era poet Kaniyan Poongundran and at IIT Madras praised Tamil cuisine, which featured predominantly in Friday’s dinner. Political analysts view Modi's recent attitude to accord importance to Tamil sentiments and highlight the classical language status as an attempt to make amends to overcome the perception that BJP is a 'North Indian party'. Apart from limited central relief after Cyclone Ockhi almost two years ago, the draft National Education Policy which suggested Hindi as an additional subject in non-Hindi speaking states recently were enough for the DMK-led opposition to carry out a strident anti-BJP campaign.

    Further, DMK president MK Stalin announced a protest of his MPs and urged like-minded parties to join him in pressuring the Centre to release J&K political leaders recently. BJP’s beleaguered ally, AIADMK, also faced public ire and censure of the Madras high court after one of its outdoor posters came of its tethering and caused the death of a young motorist. Amid such an adversarial climate, AIADMK felt relieved with Modi’s outreach: “His attire underlined the seriousness BJP accorded to strengthen roots in Tamil Nadu. He spoke of Tamil at UNGA; he spoke of Tamil food at his recent speech at IIT Madras. Now, he wears a white shirt and a veshti like a Tamil,” said senior AIADMK leader C Ponnaiyan.

    Despite the gestures, Twitter exploded with posts urging the PM to ‘go back,’ even as the local IT wing of the BJP fought back enthusiastically on social media with a counter hashtag welcoming him. The DMK IT wing chief and legislator PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan said Modi’s attempt was to “ingratiate himself with Tamils. What I can say about the Tamil electorate is that it is very sophisticated, and people generally see through such optics.” The state will see two bypolls in the near future, where the BJP will support AIADMK even as the DMK will try to improve its tally. After the BJP-AIADMK alliance fared poorly in the Lok Sabha elections, winning just one out of 40 seats, while the DMK-Congress alliance swept the state and Puducherry, the bypolls may be an indicator if the PM has managed to impress people of the state.


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