State’s politics is full of filmy twists and turns
With the Assembly election in Tamil Nadu a few months away, politics in the State has begun taking many twists and turns, resembling the plots of films an industry to which many of the State’s leading political heavyweights owe their public position. With the smaller parties scurrying to leverage their limited but important reach through arrangements with the bigger ones and the Bharatiya Janata Party yet to formalise a pre-election coalition with like-minded parties, the attention is on the two big players around whom the politics of the State has centred: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Both the parties are led by strong and unchallenged leaders. Also, both the DMK and the AIADMK basically target the same core constituency, embellished by a wider appeal through alliances over the years. AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is looking to retain her hold on the State while M Karunanidhi is plotting a comeback after being pushed to the sidelines both by his party's defeat in the last Assembly election and its poor showing in the 2014 lok Sabha poll. The election is especially important for the DMK as its leader is seen to be readying for a generational change, with MK Stalin tipped to take over as Chief Minister in case a DMK-led coalition wins. Of course, there is no similar change in the air in the case of the AIADMK, with Ms Jayalalithaa going strong despite battling corruption charges in the court, for which she recently spent some time in prison. The titanic clash between the two will, therefore, leave other players donning supporting roles. But here is a problem for the two-party theory: Captain Vijayakanth and his party, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam, are determined to be the lead players. The popular Tamil film actor, who has considerable following in pockets of the State, has demonstrated the ability to swing results in favour or against the DMK or the AIADMK, which is why both the parties are wary about his moves. In the last Assembly election, his party won more seats than the DMK and became the official ‘opposition' — although it had contested in alliance with the eventual winner, the AIADMK, with whom it later parted ways. Now Mr Vijayakanth has slammed both the principal Dravida parties and announced that he would rather be king than king-maker. He is playing his cards close to the chest, failing to announce his preference at the much-anticipated Political Turning Point Conference his party had organised on Sunday in the State.
The BJP too perhaps believes that it has a reasonably good chance of doing well in the State if it can rope in Mr Vijayakanth as a coalition partner. But it's far from certain if the alliance will happen, though the DMDK leader can hope for a greater say in such an arrangement as compared to ones with either of the two major Dravida parties. If the DMK or the AIADMK agrees to accord him a prominent enough position that satisfies his conditions on importance (being the ‘king’ would be out of the question), he could be agreeable. However, it appears almost certain that he will not align with Ms Jayalalithaa, given that his party leaders launched a scathing attack on her at the Sunday event.