Chennai: While the hustle and bustle of electioneering raising dust elsewhere in the city on the last day of campaigning on Monday, ‘Veda Nilayam’, the residence of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa in the posh Poes Garden locality, presented a picture of serenity.

Only a handful of security personnel guarding her house were seen in its vicinity, as the AIADMK supremo chose to rest after a whirlwind 23-day election campaign across the state that she covered by chopper — a first for any leader in the state’s electoral history.

Though D-day of polling was less than a couple of days away, Jayalalithaa chose to spend a quiet day at home. “Amma has not given appointments to anyone. As instructions have already been given to party functionaries with regard to their duties on the polling day, she did not meet partymen either,” sources said.
Winding up her election campaign at Pulla Reddy Avenue in Aminjikarai on Sunday, where she addressed her 41st public meeting, an exulting Jayalalithaa said she was overwhelmed by the response of the public during her electioneering and exuded confidence that the huge turnout at her meetings would translate into support in the outcome of the elections. 

   Accompanied by her close confidante Sasikalaa who was listening to her speeches from a vehicle at public meeting venues, Jayalalithaa kicked off her campaign in the southern district of Tirunelveli. Making the Sri Lankan Tamils’ plight the main plank of her front’s campaign, the AIADMK leader also sought to put the DMK-Congress front in the dock on several issues including price rise, power cut, economic crisis and deterioration of law and order. Besides touching upon national issues, she also dwelt upon local problems related to each constituency and held out promises to fulfil their long-pending demands. She also reacted to day-to-day developments in the political scenario in her campaign speeches. Laced with humour, stinging satire and jibes at rivals, Jayalalithaa’s speeches also liberally used quotes from popular MGR numbers as the crowd erupted in delight. In the delta district of Thanjavur, the AIADMK chief, also a yesteryear heroine, thrilled farmers by singing famous lines from an MGR song to describe the plight of farmers — “Kaadu vilainjenna machchan, namakku kaiyum kaalum thane michcham.” When she quoted from another popular MGR number ‘Naan anaiyittal, athu nadanthuvittal, indha ezhaigal vedhanai pada mattargal’ the crowd, particularly youth, went into raptures.