As Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK general secretary as well as the generalissimo of her party and cadre wound up her fifth campaign rally for the May 16 Assembly election, what stands out is her total disregard for the Vijayakant-led People’s Welfare Front, the BJP-led front and the PMK front which constitute the line-up for the battle royale. Her modus operandi is to list the details of the good works her Government had delivered during the last five years and to go for an all out attack on her bête noir Muthuvel Karunanidhi and the DMK whom she allege are spreading canards and lies about her Government.
Though the PWF, PMK and the BJP led fronts have unleashed vicious attacks on the AIADMK and the DMK Governments which were alternatively ruling Tamil Nadu for the last five decades, Jayalalithaa has surprisingly chosen to ignore these “minor characters” and focus her firing on Karunanidhi and the DMK. During the last five rallies, including the one which concluded in Kancheepuram on Monday, she did not mention anybody’s name other than that of nonagenarian Karunanidhi.
In her first rally at Chennai she blasted Karunanidhi for lifting the prohibition in 1971 in spite of requests by freedom fighter C Rajagopalari not to do so. “Karunanidhi is responsible for a generation in Tamil Nadu becoming addicted to liquor,” alleged Jayalalithaa. As the DMK leader took three days to come out with a response, Jayalalithaa had heli-hopped to Dharmapuri to unleash yet another broadside against Karunanidhi for ceding Katchatheevu islet to Sri lanka in 1974 which is the root cause of the sufferings of fishermen from Tamil Nadu. The DMK leadership is yet to recover from this charge as Karunanidhi and Stalin spoke in different languages about the ceding of Katchchatheev. While Karunanidhi said he had opposed the transfer of the islet, the Congress Government at the Centre did not heed to his requests.
Stalin said the transfer took place during the emergency (1975). But Karunanidhi himself said that the islet was handed over to the island nation in 1974. While the DMK leadership is struggling to find suitable explanations to Jayalalithaa’s charges, she is in an aggressive mood and coming out with more and more charges even as she takes off to address the next rally.
“This is an attempt by the AIADMK and the DMK to keep the other fronts off the Centre stage. Both the parties are trying to keep the focus on each other to deny space to other political formations,” said R Rangaraj, political observer. He pointed out that while Jayaalithaa attacks only Karunanidhi, the latter targets only the Amma and ignores the others. “Both the AIADMK and the DMK are united in keeping others away from the race for Fort Saint George,” he said.