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In India, the battle of Lanka
will be fought in Tamil Nadu
WSN Network
 Chennai: So far is
the Dravidian land that Punjabis, not to speak of Punjabi Diaspora,
often gets little interested in what is happening in Tamil Nadu. But
because of the ongoing battle in
Sri Lanka
and the direct fall out on Tamil politics, we should be keeping
track. Also, Punjab's Badal family is often compared to
Karunanidhi's family and his son Stalin has the distinction of one
of the most hated politicians in the state. Less said about Badal
offspring, the better.
In India, they
often say that if you get the poll maths right in the southern
state, you can grab the gaddi in Delhi. At least in the last four
Lok Sabha elections — since the 1996 polls — victory has gone the
way of national parties that figured out the alliance matrix in this
Dravidian land, though it sends only 39 out of the 543 MPs to the
Lower House.
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Punjab's Badal family is often compared to Karunanidhi's family
and his son Stalin has the distinction of one of the most hated
politicians in the state. In India, they often say that if you
get the poll maths right in the southern state, you can grab the
gaddi in Delhi. |
This time, however,
the count looks more complex than ever, confounding even the best
alliance engineers. Congress pulled off a sensational arithmetic
coup in 2004 by hitching on to the major provincial party, DMK, and
emerged winner from nowhere. BJP, on the other hand, tied up with
another regional party, AIADMK, and suffered a wash-out. But now,
Congress will need a triple trick to repeat the electoral sweep in
the Dravidian heartland. While it is sticking to DMK, one-plus-one
may not make a winning combination this time.
For, clearly the
Dravidian citadel is under siege and the hold of the traditional
Dravidian parties over the Tamil Nadu’s 4.1 crore electorate has
steadily slipped under the wobbly feet of their leadership. Visible
public disenchantment with the two Kazhagams has spawned electoral
space for subregional parties. It’s not enough for Congress to count
solely on DMK — it has to hook the maverick Dr S Ramadoss’s Pattali
Makkal Katchi (PMK), a habitual poll-eve camp switcher, whose
votebank lies in the Vanniar-dominant north Tamil Nadu and the
charismatic political star Vijaykanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida
Kazhagam (DMDK), which worked a pan-Tamil spell on his 2006 assembly
poll debut, with an 8.33% vote share.
Congress, desperate
to retain power in Delhi, knows the DMK’s sway — hit by inflation,
acute power cuts, Karunanidhi’s family politics and failing law and
order — is waning, perhaps as much as its own, across the country.
Hence, for the first time, Congress is directly holding parleys with
PMK and DMDK for an electoral tieup.
From being the
chief architect of the alliance, DMK has conceded the pivotal role
to Congress. PMK, which deftly enjoys the double benefits of being
ruling party ally and a relentlessly critical opposition, appear to
be talking poll business with both the Congress-DMK front and the
opposition AIADMK-Left alliance. PMK sources say the party may just
stick with Congress, only if it is offered more than the five seats
it contested and won last time. PMK chief’s son and Union health
minister Anbumani Ramadoss virtually sent out a fitness certificate
to the Congress-led rule, when he cryptically declared that the UPA
will return to power.
As for Vijaykanth,
the new star on the Dravidian horizon, he has just rushed to Chennai
for poll preparations after a hectic film shoot in Australia. But
Congress leaders claim they are in touch with Vijaykanth’s wife’s
kin. And his party functionaries, hungry for a share of the
political pie, are already issuing endorsements for a Congress-DMDK
tieup. In the casteridden alliance politics of Tamil Nadu, the
DMDK’s dream of doing an MGR or NTR and taking a lone march to power
appears far-fetched. And if he contests alone, he may win no seats
and just cut into the anti-establishment votes that could go into
the AIADMK-Left kitty.
Meanwhile, as BJP’s
PM candidate L K Advani kickstarted his campaign from Kanyakumari in
the southern tip of Tamil Nadu on Sunday, for the first time since
1996, the party is left with no allies. Though Advani had struck a
chord with Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK boss has decided to collaborate
with the communists, perhaps fearing erosion of minority votes and
also to keep her post-poll options open. While Tamil Nadu’s
mercurial Amma tried wooing Congress too, she is hoping to lure PMK
away from the DMKfold. With elections approaching, Jayalalithaa, who
played the opposition leader through vitriolic statements rather
than public protests over the last three years, has announced a fast
for the cause of Lankan Tamils. Perhaps, another gameplan to woo the
pro-LTTE PMK.
Her calculations
may run thus: with just MDMK and a Dalit party as allies, she polled
32.64% of votes in the last assembly polls. With the Left parties
and possibly the PMK with a 5.65% vote share, her alliance may pull
it off comfortably. However, in an election in which alliance
arithmetic matters more than chemistry with voters, the winning
count will depend on where Vijaykanth and Ramadoss are in the next
few weeks — Congress’s Sathyamurthy Bhavan or Amma’s Poes Garden
bungalow. As of now, it may be advantage Congress in the Dravidian
landscape.
11
March 2009
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