Nov. 10
The decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit the home of M. Karunanidhi, ailing DMK patriarch and 5-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, is a clear signal that there is an obvious change in the strategy of the ruling party at the centre, which is struggling to set foot in the southern most region of the country.
Both Mr. Modi and BJP President Amit Shah know full well that they are less than pigmies in Tamil Nadu, which contributes 39 Lok Sabha MPs. They would be more bothered about 2019 parliamentary elections than about 2021 polls to TN Assembly.
To put the whole scenario in proper perspective, we should understand that age is a veritably distancing factor. Mr. Karunanidhi became the CM of Tamil Nadu when Mr. Modi was not even 25 and just a low-level functionary in RSS. Even when Mr. Modi did become the CM of Gujarat in 2002 and remained so for close to 12 years till he became the Prime Minister in 2014, they rarely had any cordial relationship. The DMK did not make much of a noise against Mr. Modi immediately after the opposition alleged “genocide” in Gujarat in 2002 because then it was in the NDA Ministry at the centre. It never had any type of relationship with Mr. Modi since it ditched NDA and joined the UPA Government in 2004. It was with the Congress up to 2014 till it suffered a drubbing in Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP could never make its presence felt in any of the elections in Tamil Nadu. Its total vote share is hardly 3 % in the State because it has always been looked upon as a “communal party”. Such an impression has become deep rooted more because of some “fanatic fringe elements” and of course some vituperative leaders like Rama Gopalan in the south and Saskhi Mahraj, Praveen Togadia, Vinay Katiyar , etc. in the north. Their business is nothing except talking about Hindutva or Ram Mandir all the time and when BJP has such friends, it does not require enemies in Tamil Nadu.
BJP should realise that Ram Mandir does not evoke any sentimental response here as much as anti-Hindi agitation did. It should understand that the total minority strength in TN is just 6% of the population of 7 crores. Though caste violence is common, rarely has it ever seen any communal conflict and whatever has happened like 1998 serial blasts in Coimbatore, is just an aberration.
Mr. Modi is virtually like a Napoleon who is struggling to conquer Russia.
The major problem with BJP is language. When its leaders speak in Hindi, people in all other States do understand it. But in Tamil Nadu, even the eloquent ones like Vajpayee, Advani and Modi find it difficult to attract the people’s attention. Hence, if it were to go alone, it would get next to nothing. It does not have any charismatic leader in the State.
Hence, the current strategy. What will be beneficial? To align with the Jayalalithaa-less AIADMK that has no leader or to go with the DMK that definitely has leadership.
And, it is a strange coincidence that a day after Mr. Modi met Mr. Karunanidhi in Chennai, the Party decided to cancel its protest against demonetization on Wednesday.
The DMK has cited rains as the reason for cancelling the protest in eight rain ravaged districts of Tamil Nadu. However, political observers see this as a major development ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The opposition had planned nationwide protests on November 8, the anniversary of demonetization.
On Monday, PM Modi met Mr. Karunanidhi at the latter’s Gopalapuram residence in Chennai. “Vanakkam, Sir”, Modi greeted the DMK supremo as he sat near the 93-year-old and held his hand.
Mr. Karunanidhi's son MK Stalin, who was on a visit to Sharjah, cut short the trip and returned to receive the PM at his father’s residence. This is the first time the PM has met Karunanidhi at his residence. And it is quite rare for the BJP leader to do so though he has visited Chennai a number of times earlier.
Mr. Karunanidhi has been off active politics for about a year now since age-related ailments have kept him home-bound.
Close on the heels of this visit, a massive crack-down was launched on November 10 by IT Department on 187 places across India involving 1,800 personnel. All these are somehow or other related to Sasikala, the ousted General Secretary of the AIADMK and her nephew T.T.V. Dinakaran , now the bête noire of the E. Palaniswami and O. Panneerselvam faction. This is branded as “operation clean black money”. Or is this a move to eliminate Sasikala and Dinakaran from politics once and for all, as Dinakaran suspects ?
The ruling AIADMK is facing a turmoil. The BJP had helped broker peace between the camps earlier this year, but the EPS-OPS combine has not yet been able to retrieve the Party’s ‘two-leaves’ symbol which was frozen by the Election Commission.
Political observers see the meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Stalin as a signal of a sort of thaw in relations between the two parties who have been vehemently opposed to each other for close to 13 years.
Both AIADMK and the DMK are not new to the alliance with the BJP.
It was AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa who struck a deal with BJP leader A.B. Vajpayee and shared power with the BJP in 1998-1999. But their camaraderie did not last long as Mr. Vajpayee refused to dismiss the DMK Government headed by Mr. Karunanidhi in 1999. Then she pulled the rug from under his feet after her famous tea meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi, orchestrated by the maverick Dr. Subramanian Swamy.
According to The Hindu, the musical chairs in the National Democratic Alliance has become a cartoonist's delight – “political circumstances'' change, the party which left the Alliance decides to come back even as another one threatens to quit, and it goes on and on. One cartoon described the NDA as a “national departure and arrival” lounge, and another showed it as a hotel lobby where “guests” are always checking in and out.
By the time the 1999 Lok Sabha elections were held, the BJP was smart enough not only to set up the NDA as a pre-poll alliance but also announce a common manifesto, the National Agenda for Governance. That gave it a more permanent identity even if partners in the enterprise continued to come and go; the NDA would surely complete its five-year tenure.
And then DMK filled the vacancy left by the AIADMK by joining hands with the NDA and was with it, including occupying ministerial positions in the Vajpayee Government, up to 2004. Only then it struck a rapport with Sonia Gandhi and joined the UPA and formed the Democratic Progressive Alliance. The DPA swept entire Tamil Nadu in 2004 parliamentary elections with DMK securing 16 seats and Congress 10. However, DMK’s stock shot up in 2009 when it secured 18 of the total 27 secured by the UPA. But in 2014, DMK drew a blank in Tamil Nadu with UPA losing power at the centre registering its worst performance at the national level ever.
In politics there may be no permanent friends or enemies; after all the game is all about coming to power and, more importantly, staying there. But few parties have displayed the kind of skills the BJP has in jumping from one partner to another and wanting to cohabit with two opposing political forces and making a virtue of it as well.
With political expediency being the only basis and principles and conviction thrown to the winds, both the AIADMK and the DMK could become the bedfellows of the BJP anytime. Mr. Modi’s visit to Gopalapuram is just the harbinger.