At AIADMK’s IT wing meet, Palaniswami stresses need to step up youth outreach

The AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Tuesday observed that the party had suffered an erosion of 10% in its votebase.

This had to be filled only through the youth, he told a meeting of office bearers of the Information Technology (IT) wing of the party.

On his observation, a spokesperson of the meeting clarified that what Mr Palaniswami meant was that those people, who were aged about 50 years when he entered the Assembly for the first time in 1989, were no longer supporting the party due to reasons including ageing. This segment had constituted 10% of the party’s votebase. Only the youth could rectify the gap. 

Asked what the general secretary meant by the term, “youth,” the spokesperson said the term covered those who were less than 40. 

As per the data of electors for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, those who were aged up to 39 years accounted for about 40% of the total electors of around 6.23 crore. Their number was about 2.5 crore. 

Any perusal of the party’s performance since the 2011 Assembly elections would reveal that there had been a decline in the organisation’s vote share. In 2011 when the party returned to power, the vote share was 38.4% which went up to 40.8% five years later. In 2021 when the party lost power, the figure was 33.29% As for the Lok Sabha polls, the party’s vote share in 2014 was 44.92% which fell to 19.39% in 2019. In the recent election, the tally was 20.57%.

Published - October 02, 2024 12:27 am IST