Rajinikanth may not strike gold but will play spoiler to MK Stalin

If one man in Tamil Nadu politics should indeed be worried about actor Rajinikanth’s decision to take the political plunge, it is M K Stalin, the DMK heir-apparent and the State’s perpetual prince-in-waiting.

There is no immediate threat. Rajinikanth still has to form a party with a proper political structure and hierarchy. And as he said he will strike only when the Assembly elections are in sight. But as and when that happens, Stalin, who got himself appointed working president of the DMK only early this year after his father and party patriarch M Karunanidhi was rendered inactive due to advance age, could find his dream of becoming Chief Minister crashing.

For the record though Stalin has welcomed the actor’s decision and wished him just as many other politicians including AIADMK cocoordinator and Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami did on Sunday.

Stalin has been aspiring to don his father’s shoes for many years now. But Karunanidhi was reluctant to pass on the baton even in the last Assembly elections in 2016 <tel:2016>. In fact, Karunanidhi declared himself the Chief Ministerial candidate and said if Stalin had to take on the leadership mantle “then nature should do something to me.”

Though the AIADMK has disintegrated after the death of Jayalalithaa and is weak under the joint leadership of Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam, the DMK has not been able to rock the boat of the ruling party. The DMK candidate even came third and lost his deposit in the recent by-poll in Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar, the constituency vacated by Jayalalithaa. AIADMK rebel T.T.V. Dhinakaran secured a landslide victory.

However Stalin had chosen to focus his eyes on the big battle, which is the next Assembly elections and he was hoping that Dhinakaran would succeed in pulling down the government and force a snap polls.

But now he has reasons to be indeed worried. “While Rajinikanth may not taste instant success to an extent that he can form the next government, he will certainly play spoilsport for the DMK. The actor may corner 15 to 20 per cent of the vote bank, while the AIADMK, if the ruling and Dhinakaran factions unite, could still secure a similar vote bank (its actual vote base is 30 per cent upwards). In this scenario the DMK on its own may not be able to garner 3035 per cent vote bank, which is needed to form the government,” said political analyst Narayanan.

The problem for the DMK will be that in an Assembly election people can lose by margins lower than 2,000 votes. And that is what could happen when there are multiple players.

The results of the 2016 <tel:2016> Assembly elections would illustrate this better. The DMK’s candidates lost in eight constituencies by a margin of less than 1,000 votes and in 21 constituencies by less than 5,000 votes. In fact the party’s vote share of 41.05 per cent (contesting in 176 seats) was higher than that of the AIADMK’s 40.78 per cent (contesting in 232 seats polls in two seats were deferred).

For the AIADMK the leaders themselves know that they have nothing much to lose much in real terms as many of them are aware that in the absence of a charismatic leader they may not retain power in the next elections.