DMK's cup of woes runneth over

As the Swedish pop group Abba crooned in the late 1970s: ‘‘ The winner takes it all/The loser standing small/Beside the victory' ', the rumblings at the two-day general council meet of the DMK at Coimbatore during the weekend, reminds us once again how tough it is to lose.

And, tougher still, to pick up the pieces, put them together and move towards becoming whole again.

After the drubbing the party received in the April 2011 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, the DMK's cup of woes has only been overflowing. At that time, its tainted leader and discredited former telecom minister, Mr A. Raja, was behind bars. Since the party's debacle, its Rajya Sabha MP, Ms Kanimozhi, who wears the more important label of being party chief M. Kaunanidhi's daughter, has been jailed for her alleged involvement in the 2G scam. The same spectrum scam is snapping at the heels of yet another DMK leader, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, who quit as Union Textile Minister, after allegations surfaced of his family benefiting from policies and decisions he made as Union Minister for Communications (2004-07).

A damp squib

But anybody who thought the two-day DMK meet would seriously look intothe reasons behind the party's pathetic performance in the election, would certainly have been disappointed.

The DMK patriarch would say nothing more than a mundane “all of us are equally to blame” for the poll disaster. The aam janata of Tamil Nadu could be forgiven if it turned around and said: “But, sir, we thought it was your family's stranglehold on State and Central politics, and the power and pelf it brought in its wake, particularly the mega scams and other charges of corruption, that turned the ordinary TN voter away from you.”

Sibling rivalry

But instead of analysing the real causes for the defeat, and the reasons behind the growing disenchantment of the people with the DMK's first family and its alleged strong-arm ways, knives were out at the two-day meet over a different issue. Sibling rivalry between elder brother, Mr M. K. Alagiri, and younger one, Mr M. K. Stalin, came out in the open again, and there was squabbling about determining the successor to Mr Karunanidhi. The patriarch went into a sulk and threatened to quit. The quest, of course, was for the gold pot at the end of the rainbow — control over a strong cadre-based party like the DMK!

The father-figure, who has the more important role of the father to fulfil first, has other important priorities at the moment than anointing his successor. The very fact that Mr Alagiri attended the meet was a pointer that his younger brother would have to wait for some more time to sit on his father's chair. Any such announcement holds out a real danger of creating a split and taking the already beleaguered party to the brink. Mr Karunanidhi's first priority is to get his daughter out of jail.

For the time being, the astute politician in Mr Karunanidhi has deflected the crisis vis-à-vis the succession issue. He has also made all the right noises on continuing to remain within the UPA. What other option does he have is the vital question. Apart from declaring support for both Mr Raja and Mr Maran, he has ruled out the DMK seeking the two berths vacated by the party. The bigger question is if the Congress would have yielded these or any other important Cabinet berths even if the DMK had asked for them.

Rising from the ashes

But, of course, the biggest question relates to the DMK's future. It reminds me of the time when the AIADMK General Secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, was asked, in an article, by a former colleague of mine if she “would rise from the ashes”. The reference was to the phoenix, and the article was written after she had badly lost the 1996 TN Assembly polls.

Soon after that defeat, in a long interview to this correspondent, an angry Ms Jayalalithaa had remarked: “What kind of a question is this? Just because your colleague has a pen and a newspaper to publish whatever he writes, he should not shoot off his mouth. Of course, Jaya will rise from the ashes.”

She did just that in 2001, and once again in 2011. The irony is that in her latest regeneration and return to power with such a thumping majority, nobody could have contributed more than the DMK's first family.

The shoe is now on the other foot, and the question is whether the DMK will rise from the ashes. At the DMK's General Council meet, Mr Karunanidhi too kept a brave face; compared the DMK to a “fortress” and recalled that the party had withstood Emergency. “This setback is not worse than Emergency,” he proclaimed.

Interesting times ahead

Histrionics and brave speeches aside, the next interesting stage in Tamil Nadu politics will be close to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The UPA is led by the Congress, which is steadily and speedily losing its sheen. This time around, the Congress will be battling the much larger burden of anti-incumbency, after 10 years in power. So it is going to need allies that can bring in a rich haul of seats; going by its 2011 record, the DMK might not fit the bill.

And, just before the TN elections, the Congress made the blunder of not accepting Ms Jayalalithaa's offer of support, if it dumped the DMK. Around that time, the 2G spectrum scam charges were flying thick and fast and the AIADMK supremo had cited this and warned the Congress of the heavy price the party would have to pay if it continued its alliance with the DMK.

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Now that Ms. Jayalalithaa has been vindicated, with the TN electorate rejecting the DMK, there might be some interesting times ahead. Granted, Ms Jayalalithaa is not an easy ally to have. But given the sibling rivalry, the subdued mood of Mr. Karunanidhi at the DMK meet, and his decision not to press for two Cabinet berths at the Centre, a change in political alliances well before 2014 cannot be ruled out.

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