Sasikala’s long shadow over AIADMK

Majority of the 122 ruling party MLAs and ministers are in favour of keeping Sasikala ‘out of power in the party’.

Tamil Nadu and its Dravidian politics are once again at the centrestage of national politics. What began as a battle for the legacy of Amma, the late J. Jayalalithaa, in early February, has now turned into open haggling for the Chief Minister’s chair at Fort St George, the seat of power in Chennai. This time the protagonists are ousted Chief Minister-turned-rebel-fora-cause, O, Panneerselvam (OPS), who desisted from sitting in Jayalalithaa’s chair twice, when he got the opportunity to do so, and current Chief Minister and confidant of jailbird V.K. Sasikala till the other day, E. Palaniswamy (EPS). To add spice to the drama are Sasikala’s nephew and deputy general secretary of the undivided All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, T.T.V. Dinakaran, and two unidentified ministers in the Union Cabinet who are said to be pulling the strings of this puppet show being enacted in the political theatre of Chennai.

Things began to unfold in the state capital after a middleman, allegedly acting at the behest of Dinakaran to bribe certain Election Commission officials to obtain the “two leaves” symbol for his faction of the party, was held with Rs 1.5 crore from a posh hotel in New Delhi. Much before this EC, had scrapped the byelection in Jayalalithaa’s RK Nagar Assembly constituency, following revelations of Himalayan scale bribing of voters there.

Sasikala’s handpicked Chief Minister EPS and 19 of his ministers, who did not even raise a finger at the time of campaigning when money flowed like the waters of Koovum river and the subsequent scrapping of election in RK Nagar, suddenly woke up following the Delhi raid and decided to “delink” Sasikala and her family from the affairs of the party. Though EPS himself did not make any statement, his Finance Minister, D. Jayakumar was forthright when he told newspersons, “Sasikala’s family will be delinked from the party affairs. More than 1.5 crore of AIADMK cadre wish that the family of Dinakaran should be kept out.” It has been claimed that the majority of the 122 ruling party MLAs and ministers are in favour of keeping Sasikala and her family “out of power in the party”. But no one knows whether the rank and file of party workers, who, till the other day, were all for Chinnamma, favour a “Sasikala-mukt” AIADMK. Panneerselvam, who still has only 12 MLAs with him, soon joined issue saying the ouster of Dinakaran, and through him Sasikala, is just the first salvo in their “Dharam Yudh” against a family taking a stranglehold over the party. He offered wholehearted support to Palaniswamy for his efforts to clean the party stables of the “poisonous venom” spawned by the Mannargudi clan. However, insiders say that any compromise formula, if at all chalked out by OPS-EPS factions, will not be easy. For, while Panneerselvam is angling for nothing less than the Chief Minister’s job, Palaniswamy is bent upon holding on to it.

It had been smooth sailing for Sasikala and company in the immediate weeks following the demise of Jayalalithaa. She was named Chinnamma overnight, with hordes of followers still milling outside Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden residence to have a glimpse of Sasikala, who continued to live there with her immediate family. Chief Minister Panneerselvam and his colleagues in the Cabinet made a daily beeline to get her darshan and nod for their decisions. For some time, she was the centre of power without holding any post in the party. Even when she wanted to become the general secretary of the party, there was not a murmur of dissent. But the moment Sasikala thought she could fit into Jayalalithaa’s shoes, things started going wrong. Her wanting to become the Chief Minister was her undoing.

If the glue that has held AIADMK together for years was Jayalalithaa, it is going to be power that will define the existence of the party in future. During the short duration of campaigning in RK Nagar, both OPS and EPS factions must have realised that the relevance of Amma will not hold for ever. That is why they clamoured so much for the election symbol of “two leaves”. It is a motif which has become etched in the minds of millions of Tamils, who used to rally behind their Amma. Imagine M. Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam without its symbol of the “rising sun”. Even if one goes back to the visuals of Jayalalitha’s election campaigns, one can see that at the end of all meetings she used to raise her two fingers not as a sign of victory but to signify the “two leaves” of MGR. Now in the absence of Amma and without that symbol, AIADMK loses its identity. It is this very existential question that has prompted Panneerselvam and Palaniswamy to join hands. Sasikala and her Mannargudi Mafia were just a catalyst. But will that do for AIADMK to survive as one entity in coming years? Or will a lotus bloom between the two leaves? The Supreme Court’s recent ruling pertaining to a time-bound trial against top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders charged with conspiracy that led to the demolition of the Babri mosque in December, 1992, has created a dilemma for the entire Sangh Parivar. Although the order does not bar the key functionaries such as L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti from either contesting elections or from holding any position including that of the President of the Republic during the pendency of the trial, yet it has magnified questions regarding both morality and propriety. Other questions that have been hoisted relate to the use of Article 142 to arrive at a decision seen as arbitrary by several legal luminaries. In addition, charges have been pressed against 13 persons whose names did not figure in the charge sheet for over 25 years, a point that seems to defy legal logic. Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh, who was the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister when the structure was dismantled, will be tried after he ceases to hold the constitutional position, which grants him immunity.

The BJP, which won the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls riding on a Hindutva wave, with many of its leaders eloquently expressing themselves in favour of the construction of the Ram Temple, has been put in an extremely uncomfortable position. On one hand, if it decides to deny Advani or Joshi, the country’s presidentship on the grounds that they were facing trial, it would be a legally untenable step and on the other, it would dilute its proclaimed desire to build the temple in Ayodhya. Therefore, it is not surprising that the official BJP position is that all its leaders charged with conspiracy were innocent till proven otherwise after the culmination of the trial.

The Supreme Court order has provided ammunition to the opposition parties, which have lauded the judgement while concurrently taking a stance that the BJP has frayed the secular fabric of the nation. The Congress, which has demanded Uma Bharti’s resignation from the Union Cabinet, is, however, cautiously treading on the matter, since it has comprehended that its worst loss in a Parliamentary poll in 2014 was on account of the public perception that it had tilted towards the minorities. In order to redeem itself in the eyes of the electorate, it will have to re-think its strategy on the issue.

The restoration of the conspiracy charge would also prolong the trial, which, in normal course, was coming to an end in the next six months, but now would continue for the oncoming two years. It would, perhaps, furnish an opportunity to some of the defendants to name Congress leaders who were privy to information connected to the razing of the controversial structure. Many veteran Congress leaders such as Makhan Lal Fotedar have stated publicly that the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao had been personally intimated regarding the Sangh’s plan to tear down the mosque. However, the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Cabinet Secretary paid no heed, thus taking no preventive measures. There were official records in the files of the Intelligence Bureau to establish that the Central government did not act decisively, despite being privy to classified reports. Fotedar in his book, The Chinar Leaves, narrates how the then President, the late Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma had broken down on hearing the news of the destruction. The former UP Chief minister, Naryan Dutt Tewari had earlier tipped senior partymen that anticipating his dismissal, Kalyan Singh, the Chief Minister had started getting his personal residence renovated in Lucknow several weeks before he was ousted. Former Union Minister Arjun Singh too had taken up the issue with Narasimha Rao, who seemed reluctant to act and allowed time to lapse, resulting in the bringing down of the structure.

In short, the issue has several dimensions—legal, political, criminal, historical and sociological. The complexity of the matter would prevent anyone to look at the fallout objectively, without reference to all the aspects. From the BJP perspective, since the trial would continue for two years, it would assist in keeping the Ayodhya issue alive till the 2019 parliamentary polls. The UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others have already reaffirmed their resolve in the creation of the Ram Mandir at the Babri Mosque site and this could help in reaping political dividends.

There are also conspiracy theories that are afloat regarding why the CBI did not present an amended affidavit, keeping in view the changed situation, but chose to persist with its initial stand, which lacked adequate legal merit. The postulation which is gaining momentum is that certain leaders in the Sangh wanted to deprive Advani and Joshi the right to be nominated as the BJP’s presidential candidates. On the face of it, this presumption may look credible, but is thoroughly devoid of legal argument. Therefore, if the Sangh and the BJP and its allies decide to approve the name of either Advani or Joshi for the Presidentship, the Supreme Court order will not be a political or legal impediment. Thus, it is totally premature to conclude that Joshi and Advani are out of the presidential race till the selected nominee is officially named. Between us.