If DMK working president M K Stalin thought he could do a YSR Congress leader Jaganmohan Reddy by pressing the AIADMK to ask its Members of Parliament to resign over the Cauvery issue, he got his calculations completely wrong. Jagan managed to pull it off and draw Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu out of the NDA because competitive politics over the emotive issue of special category status to Andhra Pradesh was at work. Naidu anyway had an uneasy equation with the BJP, a relationship that became more tenuous after the elevation of Venkaiah Naidu as vice president.
In Tamil Nadu, both CM Edappadi K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam enjoy the goodwill of PM Modi and don’t want to send any signal that suggests otherwise. Which was why hours after party spokesperson K C Palanisamy said the AIADMK could align itself with YSR Congress’ no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, the leadership expelled him from the primary membership of the party.
Also AIADMK icon J Jayalalithaa was always against placing Andhra and Telangana in a special basket, saying it could trigger flight of industry and capital from Tamil Nadu, so making common cause with the neighbours is a strict no-no. Yet the Cauvery issue is on slow boil, with all parties in TN insisting the Centre announce the setting up of a Cauvery Management Board by March 30, the day the Supreme Court deadline for setting it up ends.
If Stalin were to jog his memory a bit, he would recall another resignation drama about a decade ago when the DMK was part of the UPA and the Sri Lankan ethnic cleansing of Tamils during its war against the LTTE was at its peak. To deflect criticism, the then CM M Karunanidhi demanded the Centre use its clout to force a ceasefire. All 13 MPs of the party, including seven ministers, offered their resignations to Karunanidhi. A week later the patriarch let the Congress persuade him not to insist on the resignations. Genocide followed. Surely Stalin’s party is not qualified to harp on mass resignation of MPs now.