Beginning of new era in TN politics post Jayalalithaa, Karunanidhi

By Venkatachari Jagannathan

Chennai, May 2 (SocialNews.XYZ) Assured of electoral victory in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, DMK President M.K. Stalin on Sunday said "a new chapter is set to begin in the organisation's history".

Interestingly, it is not only to DMK's history that a new chapter is being added.

The death of two tall leaders of the state -- AAIADMK's J. Jayalalithaa in 2016 and DMK's M. Karunanidhi in 2018 -- resulted in new chapters being written in the state's politics.

On its part, the DMK won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls routing the AIADMK alliance. The DMK alliance won 38 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

That success was replicated in the April 6 Assembly polls.

"We expected to win 180 seats. But we lost some constituencies where we had expected a win," DMK spokesperson and Parliamentarian T.K.S. Elangovan told IANS.

As to the new chapter that Stalin referred to, Elangovan said: "Stalin is a workaholic and is keen on fulfilling the promises made in the Assembly poll manifesto."

Elangovan said the party leader will take up the issues of the people.

"Stalin has the administrative experience as he has been a former Deputy Chief Minister, minister in Karunanidhi's cabinet and was also the Mayor of Chennai," Elangovan said.

Continuing further, he said Stalin also knows to run the party and has been successfully doing that for the past several years.

Further, Stalin and Karunanidhi cannot be compared as the latter's experience and the initial days were different, he said.

Karunanidhi was part of the Dravida Kazhagam which was not interested in fighting elections but protested against social evils and propagation of ideology.

"Over the years, with the DMK coming to political power, the ideology has been achieved to a great extent. Now the focus will be on administration which Stalin will effectively see to," Elangovan said.

On the other hand, the sudden death of Jayalalithaa saw tumultuous developments in the AIADMK like the two splits, one engineered by O. Panneerselvam opposing V.K. Sasikala becoming the Chief Minister.

Some months after Sasikala was jailed in the corruption case, Panneerselvam rejoined the party and patched up with Chief Minister K. Palaniswami.

Subsequently, the party also dismissed 18 lawmakers who were supporters of T.T.V. Dhinakaran, the nephew of Sasikala.

The Palaniswami government, which was on totters for want of numbers to have majority in the Assembly, finally found its feet winning the required numbers in the bypolls.

Only the last two years, the outgoing AIADMK government had a peaceful existence.

Unlike Jayalalithaa, who was not accessible, Palaniswami was down to earth and accessible, answering the tricky or nasty questions raised by the media.

He never missed out an opportunity to say that he was from a humble family. The AIADMK culture of falling at Jayalalithaa's feet did not continue during Palaniswami's period.

Meanwhile, the days ahead are not going to be peaceful for Palaniswami with political analysts and others predicting internal power struggle with Panneerselvam.

Expelled former AIADMK Parliamentarian K.C. Palanisamy and a political analyst told IANS that Sasikala and Dhinakaran are now a spent force after the elections and may not be a threat for the AIADMK.

"Sasikala should have attempted to capture AIADMK or attacked it strongly soon after her release from the jail. But she announced her decision to keep away from politics temporarily," Palanisamy said.

In the Assembly polls, Dhinakaran himself was trailing and none of the other party candidates were able to win a seat which in turn exposed their lack of influence among the Thevar community, the political analyst said.

So, the coming days are not going to be smooth for the AIADMK and its leaders. After the swearing-in, the DMK government will start filing cases against the erstwhile ministers.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

Source: IANS