If the recent statements made by senior DMK leaders are any indication, party cadre could not be blamed for thinking that the principal Opposition party in Tamil Nadu is squandering away whatever goodwill late M Karunanidhi and party chief M K Stalin commands among the electorate.
Last Friday saw R S Bharati, MP and organising secretary of the party being arrested under the charges of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 for a speech he delivered in February during a party meeting held at Chennai. The complainant, leader of an outfit for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe charged that Bharati, a popular leader who is engaged in a series of legal battles against the alleged corrupt practices of the AIADMK, humiliated the Dalits in the State using filthy languages. The Egmore Magistrate court granted him bail till June 1.
Even before the ink on the bail order could dry up, another case is coming up against the youthful Dayanidhi Maran MP, nephew of Stalin, for his outburst against the Chief Secretary of the State.
Maran who led a delegation of DMK MPs to the secretariat last week to mee K Shanmugham, the soft-spoken Chief Secrtetary, alleged that that latter treated him and members of the delegation as if they were Dalits.
A case in this regard has been filed by leaders of Dalit outfits which is expected to trouble the DMK leadership in months to come.
“This has resulted in the alienation of Dalit community from the principal Opposition party,” said Kolahala Srenivaas, popular author and political commentator. “The DMK which had consolidated the Muslim votes with its agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act is losing the support of the Dalits because of the outbursts by leaders like Bharati and Maran. The next one year is highly critical for the DMK because the assembly election is scheduled to take place during April-May 2021,” said Srenivaas.
VP Doraisamy, former deputy speaker (2006 to 2011) and Deputy General Secretary of the DMK, a prominent Dalit face of the party joined the BJP last week causing a major embarrassment to Stalin. But K A Johny, a DMK watcher and author is of the view that the AIADMK had failed miserably on all counts and the DMK is in a strong wicket. “The AIADMK leadership knows well that they do not stand a chance against the DMK and that is the reason for the arrest of Bharati on silly charges,” said Johny.