CHENNAI: While the ‘Naarpadhum Namadhe’ (all 40 parliamentary seats are ours) slogan has been used by various political parties time and again, it was the DMK-Congress alliance of 2004 that swept all 40 Lok Sabha seats, including Puducherry, thanks to double anti-incumbency against the State and Central governments. AB Vajpayee took charge as Prime Minister for the third term on October 13, 1999. In his government, Murasoli Maran, TR Baalu and A Raja from DMK, M Kananppan and Gingee Ramachandran from MDMK, NT Shanmugam and Ponnusamy from PMK were made union ministers, besides BJP’s own Rangarajan Kumaramangalam.
Meanwhile, in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa assumed charge as Chief Minister for the second term. In the 2001 Assembly elections, she had filed nominations in four constituencies. All her nominations were rejected and she was disqualified from contesting the polls after being convicted in TANSI land deal case. However, she took up an intensive campaign for AIADMK led alliance which went on to win 132 seats out of 234 seats, mainly due to the anti-incumbency factor against the DMK government. She was then elected by party MLAs as Chief Minister.
But she soon lost the post when the Supreme Court ruled on September 21, 2001 that her election to the post of Chief Minister was not valid since she was convicted in corruption cases. Following the verdict, she resigned her post and O Panneerselvam was subsequently elected as Chief Minister. A few months later, she won an appeal against her conviction in the TANSI land deal case and again took charge as Chief Minister on March 2, 2002 after winning the bypoll at Andipatti. Her rule, however, witnessed several unrests. Government employees staged intensive protests.
The government did not take this lightly- dismissing lakhs of government employees and arresting thousands of them and teachers. As part of its iron fist approach to the protests, the state government invoked Tamil Nadu Essential Services Maintenance Act (TESMA) and Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA). In addition, Jayalalithaa enacted the anti-conversion law which irked the minorities and banned animal sacrifice at temples, losing support of several more. The state government also slapped corruption cases against opposition leader M Karunanidhi and he was arrested in a midnight from his house. The AIADMK-led Tamil Nadu government arrested Vaiko, MDMK general secretary for orally supporting LTTE at a public meeting.
Vaiko was imprisoned for 19 months under POTA Act. Besides POTA, various differences of opinion erupted between DMK and BJP despite the DMK enjoying Union cabinet berths in the BJP-led government. Following the death of Murasoli Maran, DMK quit the BJP cabinet in December 2013 as a culmination of differences that had cropped up between them for two years, Later, DMK forged an alliance with Congress. In Tamil Nadu, various political parties such as MDMK, PMK, CPI and CPM had an alliance with DMK- Congress alliance. Before commencing the campaign for the 14th parliamentary elections (2004), Karunanidhi had declared the poll slogan “Naarpathum Namadhe- Naadum Namadhe”. The ruling AIADMK formed an alliance with the Central ruling BJP.
In this election, DMK-Congress alliance won all 40 parliamentary constituencies, including Puducherry. The AIADMK -BJP alliance was crushed due to the double anti-incumbency against the State and the Central governments. At the national level, Congress-led United Progressive Alliance ( UPA) won 215 seats and left parties and other minor parties came forward to support the UPA. Sonia Gandhi was elected leader of UPA. According to media reports, she refused to take charge as Prime Minister after meeting APJ Abdul Kalam, the then President. Subsequently, Manmohan Singh was elected Prime Minister.