JUST SPAMMING | Are poll strategists good for democracy?

War rooms have always been part of the electoral campaigns, all over the world. The recent meeting of the founder president of Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam, Vijay, and his party associates with well-known election strategist Prashant Kishor was described as an outcome of ‘Pana Kozhuppu,’ a highly belittling term that can be loosely translated as ‘wealth arrogance,’ by the chief coordinator of Naam Tamilar Katchi, Seeman, provoking an immediate backlash on social media. Even if the term wealth arrogance is unacceptable, Seeman cannot be blamed for resenting the idea of roping in poll strategists from outside the State to draw campaign plans for State Assembly elections. In fact, the idea of swinging popular votes in favour of a particular political party using the invariably cheap tactics of such spin doctors agitates against the basic concept of democracy, in which forming of governments should be by the people, of the people and for the people, and not by manipulators having no stakes in the State. The only shift that those The At the State level, too, when the DMK first sought people’s mandate, they were espousing the Dravidian ideology since all the top leaders came from the movement that advocated specific social and economic changes in society.