File photo of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
Massive advertisements greeted people in their dailies in Chennai on Sunday morning, highlighting the three-year-old J Jayalalithaa government's achievements in Tamil Nadu, just two days after her AIADMK made a spectacular win in the Lok Sabha elections.
The multi-crore advertisements also reminded people of the milestones that might have slipped their minds in the din of the general elections.
It is now three years since the AIADMK stormed into Fort St. George - the seat of power in the state. The party has also emerged as the third largest party in the Lok Sabha with 37 members.
AIADMK leader C. Ponnaiyan told IANS: "The general election results are as per our expectations. In fact, we were sure of winning all the 39 seats. The state government has implemented several welfare schemes that reached the poor, which in turn has resulted the party being victorious."
According to him, every section of the poor would have benefited in one way or other by the welfare measures (free rice, mixie-grinder, laptop, goats/sheep, and others) of the government.
"Many self-help groups have benefited from the loan assistance through banks," he said. The election victory is the vindication of the Jayalalithaa government in the state, he said.
What Mr Ponnaiyan says is true as the opposition parties like the DMK, the DMDK and others campaigned hard against the ruling party's failure to improve the power situation in the state and also the price rise.
However, it did not cut ice with the people as all the sections of the people, including the Dalits, Muslims and others, voted en bloc in favour of the AIADMK.
During the past three years, the government has given fans, mixies and grinders to over 8.9 million families at an outlay of Rs.4,380.20 crore and free laptops to over 1.6 million students at a cost of Rs.4,265.44 crore.
The government also built around 1,80,000 solar powered green houses at a cost of Rs.3,420 crore.
Besides distributing freebies, the government also won the Mullaperiyar Dam water storage level case against Kerala in the Supreme Court.
This is in addition to the earlier legal victories like forcing the central government to gazette the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.
The AIADMK government also bought five percent stake in Neyveli Lignite Corporation's equity, thereby preventing the central government's plan to dilute the same in favour of a private party.
During her brief interaction with the media recently, Jayalalithaa said the party would try to implement the promises made in its general election manifesto at the national level.
The party has promised freebies on a national scale besides rejigging the formula for pricing oil as well as other natural resources.
The tag line in the advertisements quoted Jayalalithaa: "The people are with me and I am with the people."