CHENNAI: One step forward and two steps backward appear to sum up the present predicament of the DMK’s apparent heir M K Stalin in his fight with his father M Karunanidhi to wrest control of the party from the ageing patriarch. With his plans to revive the party and refurbish its image—by dumping regional satraps who have become deadwood as well as family members carrying the taint of corruption and high-handedness—coming to a naught, Stalin has no other option but to make peace with the nonagenarian.
Despite having taken up the gauntlet, Stalin is making a calculated retreat. This goes on to explain his recent denial of any rift with his father. Breaking his silence on the ongoing war within the family, he rather chose to blame the media accusing it of attempting to create a wedge. That this comes at a time when speculation is rife about the possible return of the ‘prodigal’ M K Alagiri into the party fold could not be lost sight of.
Prior to this denial, his greetings on Vinayaka Chathurthi, in a break from DMK tradition, received a snub from the Dravidian warhorse. Even earlier, the protest by P V Kalyanasundaram, a family retainer in the Kalaignar TV board and Stalin acolyte, was put down firmly. The Stalin camp has already started the campaign to make him the party’s CM candidate for the 2016 Assembly poll.
Currently the party treasurer, Stalin is apparently in a hurry. But, resistance to his efforts to salvage the party with himself at the helm comes not from unexpected quarters. Worried over the fate of other claimants from his extended family clan for a due share in his political estate, the old warhorse proved to be the stumbling block. Having converted the party into a family fiefdom, Karunanidhi is not against Stalin’s eventual coronation but is apprehensive of the family apple cart getting upset. In the patriarch’s scheme of things, this anxiety about the family’s future eclipses everything else. According to observers, this—while explaining the old man’s unwillingness to take political sanyas in spite of being confined to a wheel-chair—shows that he is yet to come to terms with the changing dynamics of the political discourse. Pitting one claimant against the other, the patriarch continues to remain in the saddle unmindful of the need for change, it is pointed out. Further, to counter the cacophony for projecting Stalin as the mascot for the 2016 polls, old guards like Durai Murugan have gone to town with ‘Kalaignar’ as CM and the nonagenarian is relishing it.
But the bitter truth is that the DMK staging a comeback is not that easy after the successive electoral reverses. For, it has been left with none of its traditional political planks to stay afloat. Right from the Tamil cause to the anti-Centre rhetoric, each one has been hijacked by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who has also surpassed the DMK in extending welfare programmes and freebies. Further, the AIADMK supremo unusually curtailing her excesses while in power makes it all the more difficult for Karunanidhi to gain any political space, say analysts.
Though Stalin came under attack from a section of the DMK after the disastrous performance in the Lok Sabha polls, in which he had a free hand, a party insider admits that the verdict helped carry forward the campaign to discard the tainted —read Kanimozhi and the Marans as well as Alagiri—and shore up the image of the party. “Within the family, he alone has no charges of corruption,” says another party veteran.
As such, the truce appears to be only temporary. As the other claimants could not be expected to lie low, the next round could well be a fight to the finish and it might not be far off. And it would be worth waiting for such an entertainer.
Transition Trouble
● Stalin’s greetings on Vinayaka Chathurthi, in a break from DMK tradition, received a snub from the Dravidian warhorse.
● Worried over the fate of other claimants from his extended family clan for a due share in his political estate, Karunanidhi proved to be the stumbling block.
● The patriarch is yet to come to terms with the changing dynamics of the political discourse.
● Pitting one claimant against the other, Karunanidhi continues to remain in the saddle unmindful of the need for change.
● To counter the cacophony for projecting Stalin as the mascot for the 2016 polls, old guards like Durai Murugan have gone to town with ‘Kalaignar’ as CM and the nonagenarian is relishing it.