Within just nine months of going to the polls, Tamil Nadu is searching for its third chief minister, all of them from the ruling AIADMK. The transfer of power after the demise of J Jayalalithaa had been smooth: it created two levels of leadership – the party with V K Sasikala and the government with O Panneerselvam . And it was always known that in the event of a conflict between the two power centres, the party’s decision would prevail. In other words, the AIADMK created a working arrangement akin to the dyarchy of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh in the UPA, with the former as the super Prime Minister, as documents exclusively published by New Indian Express in recent weeks established.
Sonia had to do backseat driving since the question of her Italian nationality had thwarted her attempts to become prime minister herself. Though she sought to give it a different spin through scripted media interviews in which she claimed never to have been interested in occupying the throne herself, no one believed she was a political saint.
Sasikala had no such hang-ups. She is the general secretary of a party that has always been monolithic. So the command and control of both the party and the government had to be vested in her sooner than later. The big decision came at a legislature party meeting on February 5 where the incumbent chief minister Panneerselvam announced his abdication and proposed Sasikala as his successor.
OPS, as the chief minister is better known, immediately faxed his resignation letter to acting Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao who was in Ooty at that point in time. Parallelly, the resolution of the AIADMK legislature party proposing Sasikala as the head of government was sent to him. Vidyasagar Rao accepted the resignation and asked Panneerselvam to continue in office as caretaker chief minister until alternative arrangements were made. The AIADMK expected the Governor to return to Chennai immediately and formalise the new arrangement. But that is where he changed the plot.
Vidyasagar Rao took three long days to return to Chennai to address the constitutional crisis. That he had better things to do on those three days, including attending a marriage reception in New Delhi and addressing a university convocation in Mumbai, made many wonder what he was up to. They suspected he was acting out a script written by the powers in New Delhi.
“A week is a long time in politics,” British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said in 1964. That ought to be pared down to three days if Tamil Nadu’s experience is anything to go by. In those three days when the Governor played the missing referee, there where attempts to cut open the AIADMK through a surprise rebellion by Panneerselvam. Sasikala blamed it on the DMK, pointing to the cozy body language between OPS and DMK stalwart Durai Murugan in the Assembly session. She went on to claim that their mutual warmth was what prodded her to expedite the take over the mantle of governance.
Governor Vidyasagar Rao later tried to defend the delay in his arrival, saying there was no constitutional vacuum since there was a caretaker chief minister in place. There was no need for alarm, he added. But even Panneerselvam wouldn’t claime he was running a functioning government. Most of his ministers and MLAs have been safely herded away by the Sasikala camp to a resort in Koovathur, about 83 km from Chennai, to prevent poaching.
Anyway, it is now known that Vidyasagar Rao wanted to wait till the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict in the disproportionate assets case involving Sasikala, which is due next week. He didn’t want to get into an awkward situation in which a person installed as chief minister might not be able to get elected to the Assembly within six months. He built his opinion on a Supreme Court ruling according to which even if there is an iota of doubt about a person’s ability to get elected to the Assembly within six months, Article 164(4) of the Constitution would come into play and be interpreted as a restriction and disqualification. The Governor could have avoided much of the current controversy had he quickly reached Chennai to lead from the front and shared his views upfront.
With her patience wearing thin, Sasikala has accused the Governor of dithering, saying his delay in decision making was driving a wedge into her group of lawmakers. She also gave enough indications that she is not going to take it lying down. An interesting week lies ahead.
Suresh Sundaram is Deputy Resident Editor (Tamil Nadu) of New Indian Express
Email: ssuresh@newindianexpress.com