Jayalalithaa’s regal style has Stalin ridiculing AIADMK leaders’ servility, invoking Tamil pride and questioning the self-respect or lack of it of the ruling party men and women.

In one word, everything about AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa is regal. Royal splendor permeates her surroundings, wherever they are, at her Poes Gardens residence or an agricultural farm land in Varanavasi in Kanchipuram where her chopper lands, ferrying Amma to her election meeting.

Her subjects and devotees are waiting for her patiently, since 3 pm., when searing summer sun scorches them and everything around them. Then too, Amma posters and Amma handbills come in handy for them to protect themselves from the burning sunshine. Amma is still ensconced in her residence in Chennai when one of her very trusted party leaders, Thambi Durai, deputy speaker in Lok Sabha, paces nervously on the dais where Puratchi Thalaivi Amma would be sitting some three hours hence.

For him, everything must be spic and span, every chair in place and every man and women at their appointed places. All the 18 candidates from the three districts of Tiruvarur, Tiruvannamalai and Kanchipuram must be in uniforms -starch white dhotis and shirts and women in green saree and blouse. Of course with the party colours draped around like an Angavastram.

The deference of the AIADMK leaders and candidates can only be measured by the angle of their bending when they appear face to face with Amma, albeit separated by some hundred meters. Can they go and chat up with their leader or offer her floral greetings? Of course no. Only the chosen ones get lucky and an audience with Amma. The list is with the security detail. The rest have to simply wait and hope.

On Monday in Kanchipuram, it was this familiar scene that greeted the Amma devotees who thronged the agricultural fields where their beloved leader was to speak to them, ask for their votes. “I had just come to see her and I am done. Now it does not matter, “ said Sushila, who lives in Kanchipuram. No she is not an AIADMK member but had come to thank Amma for everything she had done for them.

She is completely dazzled by the poise, the style and persona of Amma. How white and gleaming she is, like a goddess she gushes. And she is not the only one. Almost everyone surrounding Sushila were in awe of their leader, whom they can only see but not touch.

But they are not complaining. If anyone is complaining it is DMK treasurer and former deputy chief minister MK Stalin, who chose to attack Jayalalithaa and her style more than anything else, in the hope that it would fetch him the votes of the undecided and the youth, who are generally perceived to be anti-establishment. But Stalin’s choice to pick on Amma’s style was to draw a contrast as to how difficult it was to approach Jayalalithaa even by her own party men and leaders, so where does that leave the common man was the theme of Stalin’s attack mounted at a meeting in Karur, on Tuesday.

The DMK leader made particular mention of how even party candidates were made to sit few feet away and not spoken to. Then he went onto to make fun of finance minister O Panneerselvam saying that the poor fellow would be sitting even if there was no chair for him. The insults the AIADMK leaders bear are hurting the sensitivities of everyone, Stalin said and added it was a matter of shame that the leaders were crawling in front of their leader.

Such a lack of self-respect it is Stalin said trying to invoke Tamil pride and how it was completely missing when the AIDMK servility was on display in full public glare.

And as if to show a contrast, Stalin waved towards the four DMK candidates sitting next to him and said in DMK things were entirely different, “as you can all see”. Stalin seems to have hit the target, going by the response he was getting from the crowd gathered there for the public meeting. But more import is the action replay shown on television where his attack would hurt the AIADMK supremo more, as it would remind the people again and again and make them think about the Jayalalithaa’s style of functioning, said a political analyst.

But again, all this may come to a naught as die-hard devotees hardly care for these sort of things and would worship their deity come what may.

Ultimately, in elections, it is also the chemistry of alliances that would work and this is where the people feel the DMK may have failed. If the DMK is finding the battle tough, when it is its own turn at a stint in power, then it goes to show that AIADMK has done well so far.

Who will win, it too close to call at this stage, but Amma appears poised to scrape through. But given the good crowds Stalin is drawing as also with Karunanidhi yet to hit the campaign trail, the DMK campaign is only going to pick up momentum in the coming days. But, all through, this contrasting styles is going to be highlighted as a strategy, as a senior DMK leader said.