No Captain,Coimbatore crowd warms up to Amma

To go with the lucky extra a that tails her name,Jayalalithaa is seeking extended help.

To go with the lucky extra a that tails her name,Jayalalithaa is seeking extended help. At AIADMK-led fronts rally in Kovais VOC Park,the musical prelude tells you why. Its a fight to the finish! Were up against the money power of a family built up through five chief ministerial terms by a man who boarded a train to Chennai ticketless,the song goes.

The party platform is flying 12 flags apart from three of its own. Not all are flying high enough though. Captain Vijayakanths is hardly fluttering. The actor-politician was expected to share the stage with Amma for the first time in this campaign. This star act billed to crown the Kovai show didnt happen. The party man who stood in for Captain is at great pains to explain,which if anything only underlines the absence.

This false note apart,the allies present and fawning fall in line. While the local leaders stick to the anti-DMK script,the visiting ones push their own anti-Congress agenda. Amma sits deadpan through some two hours of Manmohan and Sonia bashing,courtesy Prakash Karat,A B Bardhan,D Raja and N Chandrababu Naidu. The approving smile is reserved for Naidu when he calls for the good old Third Front to capture Delhi in 2014. The smile is,however,measured because Naidu doesnt specify the PM.

The audience on its part has little patience for the array of accompanists. It is here to see,hear and grab Amma in their cellphone cameras. Some keep pushing against the barricades of the press enclosure to get a closer view of their sole icon. Had the camera-fitted mobile found a place in the freebie list of mixers,grinders,TVs and laptops,the media would have melted into a mass of embedded citizen journalists.

Jayalalithaa had taken her time to appear a good hour after the meeting started to let the crowd swell. She sits through the rest of the warm evening as speakers go on and on mercilessly. It is like a four-hour cricket match with slog overs frontloaded. The star striker comes right at the end.

Apart from the fact that she has shed a little weight and smiles a readier smile,Jayalalithaa looks no different from the 2009 Lok Sabha campaign and delivers a speech no less rehearsed. Only,the content has been upgraded to 2G sleaze. After the mandatory reference to MGR and her most heroic women compatriots,she goes into a focused attack on the ruling familys vice-like grip over film and TV to the entire Tamil life that imitates both. Before things get any worse,she urges voters to get into the Guinness by ensuring no DMK candidate retains deposit. Before Guinness can happen,giddiness strikes. One of the eight candidates on display,standing still with folded hands through Ammas speech,tumbles down in a mild faint.