Call it inevitable. Call it the seven year itch. But the parting of ways of the DMK and the Congress in Tamil Nadu in the run up to the Assembly polls was almost a given, with the BJP’s Arun Jaitley not far off the mark when he said on Friday night that both parties had become “a liability for the other.”
Faced with the Opposition BJP’s unrelenting campaign against the skeleton of corruption scandals rattling around in the Congress’ closet, the ruling party had little choice but to go after the corrupt, unmindful of whether they were allies or enemies.
For the DMK, faced with an election that they must win to keep the vengeful Anna DMK out, they were simply unable to justify continuing in alliance with a Congress that refused to call off the CBI sleuths.
As the Congress’ trouble-shooter extraordinaire Ghulam Nabi Azad shuttled between DMK headquarters Anna Arivalyam and Congress' own central think-tank, it was becoming extraordinarily clear that ties, which had already sustained severe damage from the fallout of the 2G scam, had become increasingly unsustainable.
Despite public protestations of Mr A. Raja’s innocence by the DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi, Mr Raja, one of the six DMK ministers in Dr Manmohan Singh's cabinet was arrested and sent to jail. Raids were conducted by the CBI at the offices of DMK supremo and chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi’s wife. To add to the DMK’s growing embarrassment after the Radia tapes blew the lid wide open on the telecom scam, the CBI was now knocking on the doors of the chief minister’s daughter Kanimozhi.
The walls were closing in on the DMK. For a party which had managed to brush aside a whispered campaign of corruption over the years under an increasingly frayed carpet, this was the election that the DMK leader hoped would allow him to pass the mantle to a younger leadership. The ageing Karunanidhi, faced with the tussle between his sons — Stalin and Alagiri, both powerful leaders in their own right — had planned to finally end the issue of who would take over from him.
Until the Radia-Raja-Kanimozhi tapes, the DMK, to all intents and purposes was on a comfortable course to a consecutive second term. The DMK’s many sops to their supporters, and Karunanidhi’s emotional pitch that it would be his last election was the main part of the campaign of the DMK’s well-oiled propaganda machine.
Despite the electorate being aware that Karunanidhi’s family has a finger in almost every pie — from politics to entertainment — the DMK believed it was on velvet, first off the mark to rope in the PMK and Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) for the DMK led Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) to help score in the north of Tamil Nadu and alongside the Kongu Nadaar Peravai to reap dividends in the west. But as the Congress, in recent days, steadily upped demands for the number of seats that it wanted to contest from 60 to 63, and the DMK insisted that, it had only agreed reluctantly to even 60, it was a seat-sharing arrangement that was doomed from the start.
Analysts say that the withdrawal of support to the UPA does not place the UPA government under an immediate threat, particularly as the rumoured linkages with the Samjawadi Party’ s Mulayam Singh and the Trinamul with 18 MPs continue to be strong, and both sides say that all is not over as yet. The Congress could yet weather the storm. More so, if other reports indicating the Congress wooing the Captain Vijaykanth, and Jayalalithaa’s own rumoured reaching out to the Congress, fructifies into an anti-DMK alliance. The AIADMK has nine MPs in parliament.
But the more interesting element may be what really led to the parting of ways. Questions are being asked about whether this was part of the Congress’ plan anyway. Given the fact that it had 8.3 percent of the vote share last time when it contested 48 seats and won 38, the Rahul Gandhi formula to go it alone in a bid to revert to the Kamaraj era and win perhaps, 10% of the vote share may have been a factor.
Campaigning together anyway would have been an issue. Despite Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh squarely blaming the DMK and A Raja for the scam, the DMK chief absolved his partyman, in a recently held press conference.
Some analysts are also saying that this is the Congress’ way of making clear that post the elections it wants a share in power; should the alliance triumph. With the DMK facing an uncertain future in the post-Karunanidhi era, the Congress is keen to step into the vacuum.
But as ties strain, the canny octogenarian may yet play his cards, knowing that without his help, it will be difficult for the Congress to win in as many constituencies as they want.
The AIADMK can only salivate at the developments. It’s confident of romping home by virtue of the DMK’s follies and its own alliance with matinee-idol Vijayakanth’s Desiya Moorpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK). Vijayakanth in the last assembly polls and subsequent bye-elections dented the AIADMK by cutting into its vote-bank. He enjoys around 8% vote share in the state particularly in the south of the state.