The Hindu Business Line : For them, it's time to rejoice

THE DMK CHIEF, Mr M. Karunanidhi, at the party headquarters with Union Ministers, Mr Dayanidhi Maran and Mr Raja, after the election results were announced on Thursday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , May 11

What must it feel like to be over 80, 60 years of that in politics, and be voted into power to be Chief Minister of a State for the fifth time?

Not many can give an answer from personal experience.

Mr M. Karunanidhi, the 82-year-old DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) leader, has had it happen to him — the hectic campaign trail, the voting, the suspense and the jubilation. Today is the climax in this sequence — it is a time to rejoice.

Party workers started gathering at Mr Karunanidhi's residence in Gopalapuram, a residential locality that became a household name due to him. It is 8.30 a.m. and reports of trends are coming in from the counting centres and crowds of party workers wait outside the house, throng the compound covered by a red-tiled shed. The suspense is thick in the air.

Over the last two days, political analysts have all but handed over the reins of the Government to the DMK alliance. Fine. But what have the voters decided?

9.15 a.m. — Mr M.K. Stalin, former-Mayor of Chennai and son of Mr Karunanidhi, enters the house — beaming.

A scream of joy rents the air, slogan-shouting starts — `Long live Dr Kalaignar' - as Mr Karunanidhi is popularly referred to among the party workers and garlands of fireworks crackle and fill the air with the pungent smell of chemicals.

Mr Stalin pushes his way through the jostling crowd and enters the house, past a porch decorated with photographs — a painting of the Mahatma Gandhi, a photograph of Anna (C.N. Annadurai, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu), and another of young Karunanidhi.

Soon Mr Anbalagan, the `Perasiriyar' (professor) drops in. A repeat of the slogan shouting, if a little subdued, he too disappears into the house.

He is followed by other party workers and loyalists, all carrying huge bouquets — a sign of changing times; what happened to the outsized garlands, wonders a voice in the crowd.

Soon, a little before 10 a.m., Mr Karunanidhi emerges. The slogan shouting, the screaming, the jostling hit a new peak as the crowd that has multiplied to a few hundreds surges forward to catch a glimpse of the man of the moment. Police appear, special security cadres in uniforms with camouflage pattern and grim faces push back paving way for Mr Karunanidhi to get into the waiting vehicle that whisks him away to the party headquarters, Anna Arivalayam, where the scene is the same but the numbers of party loyalists waiting for him is in the thousands.

Just a stone's throw away — Poes Garden, the upmarket residential locality, where Ms J. Jayalalithaa, the Chief Minister and AIADMK leader, who now finds herself voted out of power, lives, the scene is different. 7.30 a.m. — barricades are up, cops check everybody who enters the street, at the end of which are the black-painted 15-ft high gates. A few journalists are wandering around; those from the electronic media give a few introductory remarks into the camera.

She is not in. By about 8.30 a.m., the journalists start moving away.

At the AIADMK party office on Lloyd's road, crowds listen to a voice giving the election trends over a loud speaker. Disappointment is writ large; there is no cause for jubilation.