"Tiruchi meet: DMK hopes for repeat of 1996

Tiruchirapalli, Mar 2 (UNI) The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is considering its conference beginning here tomorrow as another ''thiruppumunai'' (turning point) in the long history of the party.

The ''Tiruchy conference'', the DMK believes, would be the turning point, as it would return the party to power after the May eight assembly elections, dethroning the Jayalalithaa regime.

It was in a similar conference in this Rock Fort town in 1956, that the DMK, which was founded in 1949, took the historic decision to enter electoral politics.

The party entered the electoral arena the very next year and went on to capture power in a decade's time, ending the 'Congress era' in the state.

The DMK has reasons to believe that the conference would really be the ''turning point'' again, as the meet here in 1996, proved so.

It was in the 1996 conference that the DMK took a vow to unseat the Jayalalithaa regime and inflicted a humiliating defeat to the AIADMK after fighting the elections on plank of corruption.

Now, having cobbled together the largest seven-party rainbow alliance, the DMK is confident of repeating its 1996 performance, again playing the 'corruption card' to bring down what it calls the ''autocratic and anti-people'' AIADMK government, choosing Tiruchirapalli again as the venue of its conference.

No doubt, the strength of the alliance and the simple arithmetics of the vote bank politics, puts the DMK in an advantageous position.

But the party was beset with problems of sharing seats with its allies.

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