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NT Bureau
Chennai, Feb 24:

        The Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) chief and actor Vijayakanth is rethinking his strategy in the wake of the Madras High Court dismissing his appeal on the Koyambedu land acquisition issue, sources here said today.

        Opinion makers in the party like Panruti S Ramachandran, have asked Vijayakanth not to go on appeal to the Supreme Court against the verdict but focus on effectively utilising the outcome of the case to further the interests of the party, alongside the Income tax raid to project that the actor is being victimised for his political ambitions, sources added.

        'Now there are three issues which could be effectively used to win sympathy and get votes,' a senior second rung leader of the party said lining up the IT raids, outcome of the High court case, and defections inspired from the other end of the political spectrum to dampen the spirit of party workers and weaken the leadership of Vijayakanth.

        'Tamilnadu has always been a place where sentiments have always ruled over the mind and it is also obvious that the Dravidian parties feel threatened that Vijayakanth would take away their vote bank in the long run,' a sociologist with a city based NGO working for the development of the fishing communities said.

        The issue of Income tax raids and the coverage of it by a satellite TV channel owned by the powers that be in the ruling party have already made people think about the IT raid's place of origin.

        'It is a fact that these were done only to intimidate Vijayakanth. If this was not the case, why there were no raids on Sathyaraj and other actors in the DMK or close to the DMK chief,' posed a BJP leader and wanted to know whether those with the DMK had a clean track record. 'Both the AIADMK and DMK are not comfortable with the idea of Vijayakanth getting prominence in the political arena,' he said and added that it was not possible to stop the actor beyond a limit.

        It may be noted that a division bench of the Madras High Court comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice

        K Chandru dismissed the appeal and directed the handing over of the requistioned portion of land to the national highways authority within four weeks.