Joseph Vijay has achieved the impossible in Tamil Nadu by dismantling the state’s binary politics. The 1952 duopoly of Congress vs the communists turned to Congress vs DMK from 1957 until 1972. From then till Monday, it was DMK vs AIADMK.
Vijay prophesied that this election would be a watershed moment—as in 1967 and 1977, when the DMK and the AIADMK came to power on anti-establishment votes. And so it came to pass. However, this societal churn was long overdue.
For almost six decades, the DMK-AIADMK duopoly had produced business and social elites who were catapulted to dizzying heights owing to their proximity to power. At the same time, family politics became imprinted on the DMK’s DNA. Jayalalithaa realised that the centre of gravity of DMK’s politics rested on its family rule. In her absence, there was little restraining power.
M K Stalin’s rise was hard-earned, but not the governance pedigree of most of his 33 ministers. In 1996, Jayalalithaa was charged for ostentation. Less than three decades later, when a minister detained for corruption was released on bail, he was hailed as a “sacrificial” figure. The shift was a symptom of the depths that public life in the state had sunk to.
The Dravidian model of governance tried to focus on jobs and development. But the government didn’t fully grasp Gen Z’s aspirations. Instead, it increased welfare schemes and offered doles for women. Yet, corruption became as ubiquitous as the state-controlled liquor stores.
So when Vijay took on the DMK, youngsters rallied behind him—for he was a breath of fresh air. He was seen as the reel hero stepping into the real as a David taking on DMK’s Goliath, before whom many worthies had prostrated themselves. Some saw his political foray as a sacrifice: here was a superstar at the height of his career parking it all aside for them.
It didn’t take long to repeat the politically seismic events of 1967 and 1977 in today’s world of social media and high-speed connectivity. It didn’t even require that much ground work. The spark was lit with a battle cry to throw out ‘immoral forces’ and the promise of clean governance and jobs.
Vijay didn’t reject the shiny symbols of the past. Instead, he embraced a pantheon of Tamil leaders including Anjalai Ammal, a freedom fighter from the single largest community in the state, the Vanniyars. The inclusion of Babasaheb Ambedkar among the luminaries was clearly aimed at Dalits. Meanwhile, the embrace of Dravidian patriarch E V Ramasamy Periyar showed that Vijay, like his predecessor Vijayakanth, was painting a composite, all-inclusive picture in an attempt to cover all bases. By maintaining silence or strategic ambiguity on issues that have rocked the state, such as the religious row at Thiruparankundram, he turned a hard position into one signalling pragmatism and willingness to compromise.
Massive crowds thronged his rallies—the pull was organic, not paid for. His fans campaigned at home for their new hope. They asked other voters to gloss over their leader’s shortcomings, if any. Volunteers in their teens and twenties, in khaki trousers and white shirts like their knight, poured out on polling day to ensure their leader’s victory.
Except for Vijay and K A Sengottaiyan, none of the TVK candidates was well-known—even though a fourth had belonged to other parties earlier. Vijay Dhamu, the candidate who defeated a four-term former AIADMK minister in Chennai, was an auto driver. Vijay’s driver’s son, R Sabarinathan, was another winner in the state capital. Fans, Dalits and a section of minorities stood steadfast by Vijay, though the sweep of TVK’s victory curiously did not touch Kanniyakumari, a Christian stronghold. Of the 44 Dalit winners from reserved seats, 28 are from the TVK.
It was apparent that Vijay could be a kingmaker. But this wave of trust and hope has made him the king. Winning the poll was the easy part. Staying the course and becoming the other political binary would now depend on the dedication and commitment of the team the debutant picks. It should be a mix-and-match of competence, social background and loyalty. And with that, an exciting new chapter would open in the state.
R Kannan | Author of Anna: Life and Times of CN Annadurai, MGR: A Life and The DMK Years: Ascent, Descent, Survival
(Views are personal)
Three of India’s best-known opposition leaders were voted out on Monday. Each vanquished leader reacted to the defeat in their own way. But amid this, the reaction of Mamata Banerjee stood out. In a carefully-considered press briefing on Tuesday, she declared she would not resign because the election had been “stolen”. Coming just a day after she had lost from her home constituency of Bhabanipur and the BJP had defeated Trinamool Congress in a statewide landslide, it reflected her trademark feistiness as well as the anguish of losing the Assembly she once commanded.
As a rule, Indian politicians do not retire. More so if they are party founders or the only well-recognised face of the party. Rarely, when age or infirmity compel them, do leaders actually stop working. Despite age not being on her side, Banerjee is not infirm, as she has proved while striding for miles through the streets of rural and urban West Bengal. And she has no intention of fading from the political scene.
On the contrary, now that she is free of chief ministerial responsibilities and with the Lok Sabha elections three years away, she has declared her intention of going national to stop the BJP’s alleged design of establishing “one-party rule”. In her new avatar, Banerjee has already started shaping her future with the hope of constructing a new politics in India.
But before that, she is also trying to come to terms with the defeat. It would also not be lost on her that though Bengal usually gives a long rope to political formations—for example, voting the Congress and then the Left Front back to power for several consecutive terms—once the state turns its face, it rarely looks back benignly at a party.
The challenge, for now, is also to keep the flock together while in opposition. That’s the intent with which her announcement of ‘not resigning’ should be seen—as a message to her party’s workers. “We will bounce back,” she thundered at the press meet. That’s because unlike her, not everyone in the Trinamool Congress has either the resilience, stamina and mental courage it takes to face the wrong end of lathis and bounce back from the injuries inflicted, or her grit and risk-taking capacity.
So when the leader said she would bounce back to “fight the battle”, it was classic Banerjee in the opposition mode—a role she left behind 15 years ago after her spectacular victory against the deeply-entrenched, 34-year-long CPI(M)-led Left Front regime.
Banerjee is a rare phenomenon in Indian politics not only because she belongs in the exclusive club of three-term chief ministers. She is also one of the few who exited a big party to found a successful new one, and moved from the state to the Centre and back to the state again. But in denial that she has lost this election, and maintaining that her defeat in over 100 constituencies was “manipulated”, the leader is today unwilling to acknowledge that the excessive abuse of power by Trinamool’s grassroots workers, and even senior party leaders, has built up seething resentment against her regime.
Anti-incumbency—cleverly crafted into a dominant narrative by the BJP, and corroborated by her old rivals, the CPI(M) and the Congress—ate into her credibility as the leader who promised poriborton or change when she established the “Ma-Mati-Manush” government oriented to delivering welfare and development to the state’s women, peasantry and commonfolk.
Banerjee’s counter-strategy of using the SIR process to leverage issues of identity and citizenship failed to consolidate the three major chunks of her vote base—women, Muslims and marginalised Hindus. As a result, Trinamool’s vote share dropped from 48.5 per cent in 2021 to just over 40 percent, regardless of whether her allegations of engineered election were true or not.
The leader needs to vindicate her claim that she “morally” won the election. To do so, she is going to tell her story in states that have gone through the SIR process and await elections and those where SIR has not happened yet. Like a woman scorned, Mamata Banerjee out of power may be an even more difficult politician to contain.
Shikha Mukerjee | Political commentator
(Views are personal)