Sunday, April 23 2006 12:09 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: The promise of 'ricetronics' by DMK in its election manifesto has brought about a sea change in the style of campaign for the May 8 assembly polls in the Tamil Nadu.

The promise of supply of rice at Rs two per Kg and provision of free colour television sets to families which did not posses them was initially ridiculed by leaders of the AIADMK-led Democratic People's Front, but sensing the wave it had created among the rural masses, they not only had to swallow their words, but also think of promising something on similar lines.

While the DMK President M Karunanidhi went on his campaign harping on these promises, AIADMK supreme Jayalalithaa had termed the promise as "impractical and non-implementable".

She said it was not possible to supply rice at Rs two per Kg as long as the Centre released it from the pool at Rs 5.65 per Kg for BPL families and at Rs 8.30 per Kg for others. The state had already incurring a subsidy of Rs 1500 crore annually on food subsidy alone, she said.

But as the days progressed and the impact of rice promise became more visible, particularly among the rural masses, Jayalalithaa made a somersault and promised 10 Kg of rice free of cost, if the ration card holders purchased 10 kgs at Rs 3.50 per kg.

She made another U-turn by announcing that ration card holders could take the free rice by showing their cards at the ration shops and there was no need for them to purchase rice at all, which effectively meant a subsidy of Rs 35 per month to every ration card holder.