TN POLITICS STARES AT A POWER VACUUM
Tamil Nadu is in a shambles. The days of strong, effective governance were over when J. Jayalalithaa breathed her last nine months ago. The churning process is still on but the power vacuum is too stark to be missed.
The southern citadel of Tamil Nadu was zealously protected by Jayalalithaa so long as she was in power. Jaya’s sudden demise and DMK stalwart Karunanidhi’s virtual incapacitation were simultaneous events that left the AIADMK and the DMK virtually leaderless.
While Karunanidhi had nominally groomed his son Stalin to succeed him, Jayalalithaa was too selfcentred to groom a second line of leadership to take over from her. Her ministers were pygmies who were too petrified to even breathe freely in her presence. Sycophancy was palpable. The result has been a power vacuum in the AIADMK that is gaping at the people.
While Jayalalithaa lived, no one could take her, and consequently Tamil Nadu, for granted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and she were on friendly terms for long but Modi too was wary of her. He had the example of how she had brought down Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s 13-day government with characteristic ruthlessness.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and subsequent Assembly elections, the AIADMK and the BJP fought the polls separately as rivals and the BJP continued to be a marginal player in the southern state. After a while, the BJP gave up on her and was content with support in the Rajya Sabha on key bills.
In the post-Jayalalithaa period, the Modi-Amit Shah combine saw an opportunity for gaining a foothold in Tamil Nadu riding on AIADMK’s shoulders. Modi knew that with newly-anointed chief minister E. Palanisamy and rebel faction leader O. Panneerselvam pulling in different directions, and with both lacking charisma, the DMK would have a cakewalk in the next Assembly polls four years later.
Seeing that the DMK was inclined to go with the Opposition, Modi reckoned that the best bet was a united AIADMK supporting his government or being part of it at the Centre. He was acutely aware of what V.K. Sasikala had been up to while Jayalalithaa lay helpless in the hospital bed in her last days, and wanted to keep a safe distance from her and her ‘Mannargudi mafia’.
With the merger of the factions in the AIADMK accomplished and Sasikala seemingly marginalised at least for now, it wouldn’t be long before the party joins the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and starts lobbying for ministerial berths with Modi.
So far the script has indeed gone according to the Modi-Amit Shah plan. How long this will last will depend on how sustainable it is in the context of Sasikala’s machinations with her nephew Dinakaran in tow. That Sasikala and Dinakaran are flush with money is well known but while they were more than a match for Palanisamy and Panneerselvam, will the Mannargudi mafia, as the clan is called, get the better of Modi and Shah too?
On the evening of the merger of the two factions, Dinakaran was able to mobilise the support of 19 legislators who later went to the Governor and dissociated themselves from the AIADMK government of Palanisamy.
Indeed, Sasikala is not one to give up so easily. Wily as she is, she may have new cards to play. There is no mistaking the fact that Jayalalithaa and Sasikala are sitting on crores and crores.
But with a judicial inquiry into circumstances leading to Jayalalithaa’s death on the anvil, the control of Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden residence snatched away from her, and jail conditions of Sasikala under close watch in the wake of exposes of special treatment she was getting, Jayalalithaa’s one-time protégé is no longer riding high. Yet, the pulling power of money is immense and there is no knowing what shape her wrath would bring upon Palanisamy and Panneerselvam and their retinue of largely opportunistic and time-serving supporters.
Though Sasikala is hemmed in by the fact that she is behind bars, her henchman Dinakaran is a pastmaster in wheeling dealing and would leave no stone unturned to destabilize the present government. Already, to frustrate the attempt of Chief Minister Palanisamy to consolidate his position Dinakaran has hijacked 19 legislators and bottled them up in a resort in the hope that the Governor would be forced to order a floor test. The next couple of years would indeed be an ordeal of fire for the crafty Sasikala. Sitting in jail how she marshals her resources to get back into reckoning in her party would be a new challenge for her.
The Palanisamy government will doubtlessly need to get down to serious governance in which it has been deficient in the few months that it has been in power. The electorate will judge it by the growth it delivers, the fillip it gives to industry, the orientation it gives to its policies on agriculture and small scale industries and how well it navigates the welfare measures which were Jayalalithaa’s hallmark. At the same time, it will need to prove its credentials in reining in corruption and bureaucratic sloth.
It is currently not in Dinakaran’s interest to precipitate fresh Assembly elections so his band of supporters may not yet rock the boat just yet. But Sasikala and Dinakaran would do everything possible to retain their clout with the inherently weak government.
Amidst all this high drama there is the factor of cine idols like the redoubtable Rajnikant and the ambitious Kamal Haasan seeking to take advantage of the power vacuum in Tamil Nadu politics.
While Rajnikant with his huge following is torn between whether to plunge into politics or not, Kamal has more or less decided to go with the DMK. It’s all building up for the next big test—the 2019 general elections which may well be preponed by a few months.
The author is a political commentator and columnist. He has authored four books