CHENNAI: The night was still young on Cenotaph Road on Friday when Thol Thirumavalavan’s old Ford Endeavour pulled up outside MK Stalin’s residence. The entire state had been watching VCK’s next move with bated breath.
With the CPI and CPM announcing unconditional external support to TVK formally on Friday evening, all Thirumavalavan expected to do was follow the Left parties, as he had stated earlier. However, he kept everyone waiting, and went straight to former chief minister and DMK president MK Stalin’s residence on Friday night.
A high-level VCK meeting had thrown up a different suggestion to seek a share of power in the new government.
While one section pushed for a ministerial berth or the post of deputy chief minister in a TVK-led government, another floated an idea of making Thirumavalavan the chief minister, backed by both the DMK and the AIADMK, sources privy to the meeting told the TNIE.
It is this proposal that prompted Thirumavalavan to visit Stalin at his residence for a consultation.
Stalin was reportedly receptive to the idea, but raised questions about future electoral politics. He asked which alliance VCK would prefer to contest the next elections with, if both Dravidian majors backed him for the top post.
The same proposal was also taken to AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami. Sources close to EPS, however, said he rejected it outright, noting it would damage his core vote bank.
It was only the latest in a week filled with political twists and turns.
The DMK was struggling to come to terms with the May 4 poll results which revealed how the fledgling TVK led by C Joseph Vijay had trounced the party. Vijay had shaken all the traditional fortresses of the Dravidian giant, with party president and outgoing Chief Minister MK Stalin himself losing his seat to a TVK candidate.
Nevertheless, Stalin was determined to perform his best as an opposition leader against the new government. Others in his party were less sanguine. Reports diverge here. One section of DMK insiders said their arch-rival, the AIADMK which was pushed to the third place in the polls, sent out feelers proposing the hitherto unthinkable - of a tacit understanding between the two Dravidian parties.
Another section claimed it was the brainchild of Stalin’s son, Udhayanidhi. His idea in short was for the decades-long bitter political enemies to join hands to keep Vijay out of power. It quickly gained traction with a section of second-rung leaders and former ministers in the party who put it forward to the DMK supremo. Multiple insiders said that Stalin was opposed to the idea but nonetheless broached the topic with the Left parties and the VCK, allies of the party.
With the Left balking at the notion, the proposal fell through -- the combine simply would not have the numbers and after five days of backroom operations, the plan fizzled out. Both DMK and AIADMK finally gave up and issued the customary congratulation messages on Saturday. Later in the day, Thirumavalavan extended the VCK’s unconditional support from outside to the TVK, the IUML too following suit. The TVK had reached the finish line.
TVK’s post-poll trauma
Soon after securing 108 seats on Monday, Vijay, citing a 34.92% vote share, wrote an email to the Lok Bhavan staking a claim to form the government. However, the governor asked Vijay to show the support of the 118 MLAs. Vijay personally dialled each party leader, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan seeking support. Congress, with five MLAs, was quick to act. It convened state level and national level meetings on May 5 and joined an alliance with the TVK on May 6, taking the tally to 112 seats.
More drama followed.
Vijay, still short of six more seats to reach the magic number of 118, went on a charm offensive personally speaking to CPI, CPM and VCK leaders, apart from formally sending letters seeking their support. When he reached out to CPI state secretary M Veerapandian over the call, Vijay told him he had deep respect for the communist movement. With CPM state secretary P Shanmugam, Vijay had acknowledged his own ideological limitations. Thirumavalavan publicly confirmed that he had received Vijay’s call. Sources close to the VCK leader said Vijay had gone a step further and Vijay told Thirumavalavan that he intended to share power with the VCK and would be glad to have the party’s support.
CPI and CPM both convened executive committee meetings on Ma 8, with the request from TVK on the table. Soon after the meeting, both the Left parties extended their unconditional support to TVK, but clarified that they would not join the cabinet. The parties also clarified that they would continue their political journey with the DMK on questions of secularism, state rights, and welfare.
“The decision was taken to honour the people’s mandate and to shut the door to the BJP attempting to enter through the back door in the event of a hung verdict spilling into President’s rule,” Veerapandian told media.
CPM’s Shanmugam also said the support was only for government formation, not a political alliance.
Both leaders, however, revealed something that had been whispered in the political corridors until May 8: that the DMK had suggested they support the AIADMK in forming the government. CPM general secretary MA Baby told a television channel that said Stalin had directly told them that the DMK was favourably inclined towards supporting an AIADMK government from the outside and expected the Left to do the same.
“It was decided that the leaders would meet Stalin and say that it was not our intention to oppose the DMK, but we are not going to accept their political line of supporting the AIADMK, which was with the BJP,” Baby said.
A senior leader who spoke to TNIE confirmed this account. “We asked Stalin what the decision was, and he said they were considering extending external support to the AIADMK and sought our backing. We told him it was not in alignment with our ideology,” he said. On Saturday, Baby backtracked and dismissed any mention of a DMK-AIADMK combine as a rumour.
According to sources, former AIADMK ministers met with some outgoing DMK ministers to discuss a scenario in which the DMK and its allies would back the AIADMK in forming a government with AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami as CM.
While Stalin is learnt to have been against such a move, a section of DMK leaders was overly ambitious. In a meeting on Wednesday, the DMK passed a resolution giving authority to Stalin to take “urgent decisions after examining the political and administrative situation that emerges in the due course”, officially opening the door to the possibility of a historical move.
A highly-placed source in DMK told TNIE the DMK was not ready to face another election in six months, and hence, the party wanted to take a stand to form a “stable government”.
“DMK was not stopping TVK from forming the government. In case it does not get the desired majority, we may have supported AIADMK from outside to have a stable government,” the source told TNIE, adding that these developments would have of course depended on the stand taken by the two Left parties and VCK.
Once the Left parties rejected the idea outright, according to sources, the DMK dropped the plan and suggested VCK and IUML extend support to TVK instead and ensure the governor doesn’t proceed with President’s rule and a re-election.
Behind the scenes, TVK leaders and strategists too were working the numbers. Deputy general secretary CTR Nirmalkumar had been in direct talks with the Left parties and general secretary (propaganda) Arunraj with the IUML. General secretary Aadhav Arjuna was in close touch with Thirumavalavan throughout.
AIADMK’s dilemma
The election results shattered the AIADMK’s dreams. As the alliance was pushed to third place it lost its status as the principal opposition party in the Assembly. With a political obituary looming, intense internal discussions, alliance manoeuvring, and speculation about government formation soon emerged.
While senior leaders like KP Munusamy, OS Manian and Pollachi V Jayaraman stood by the view that the AIADMK should not support the TVK in forming a government, another group of MLAs, led by CVe Shanmugam and SP Velumani, said they were willing to support the TVK and share power. Their contention was that staying close to power would be safe for the AIADMK for the next five years.
By May 6, political attention shifted decisively from election analysis to government formation. There were many meetings among the leaders, including Shanmugam and Velumani, at Shanmugam’s residence, and later with the AIADMK general secretary. A functionary spread the message that around 30 MLAs were rallying behind Shanmugam and Velumani, and that it was a “checkmate” for EPS – either accept the demand for supporting the TVK or deal with a vertical split within the party.
However, Palaniswami believed offering AIADMK’s support when the TVK had not asked for it, would be improper and would bring the party into disrepute. In a nutshell, he was not ready to sacrifice the long-term goals for short-term benefits. Even as the TVK camp failed to respond convincingly, backchannel conversations with the DMK camp on the prospect of the Dravidian majors coming together with Palaniswami as CM, turned discussions within the party in that direction.
On May 7, speculation about the DMK backing an AIADMK-led government began to gain momentum. Meanwhile, most of the AIADMK MLAs were taken to a resort in Puducherry on the night of May 7, and later shifted to another resort. AIADMK sources said it was done to prevent ‘poaching of MLAs’ by other parties.
At this time, the internal conflict of the AIADMK became so intense, there were apprehensions that this would lead to a split in the party. However, on the night of May 7, Palaniswami travelled to the Puducherry resort and addressed them. During that meeting, all newly-elected MLAs of the AIADMK were present, and they were made to sign two forms – one to support the government led by Palaniswami and another to abide by the decisions in this regard. Palaniswami signalled that the good news will follow in the next few days, and returned to Chennai.
On May 8, after the Left parties extended their support to the TVK, the AIADMK camp went silent. Significantly, the residence of EPS began to look deserted in the evening. Many of the MLAs left the Puducherry resort and returned to Chennai crest-fallen, while a few remained there there.
AIADMK’s plan that never took off
On May 6, leaders of the Left parties, the IUML and Kongunadu Makkal Desia Katchi met MK Stalin at Anna Arivalayam. During the meeting, Stalin, embittered by the Congress’s hasty defection, urged the Left leaders to continue in the DMK-led alliance.
Initially, the alliance partners assured him that they would remain with the DMK alliance. Sources said Stalin explained the DMK’s backup plan if the TVK failed to prove its majority in the Assembly and voiced DMK-AIADMK idea. He said the DMK was considering indirectly helping an AIADMK-led government survive the trust vote. If TVK voted against the government, the DMK was planning to support the AIADMK. If TVK staged a walkout, the DMK too would walk out to help ensure the smooth passage of the confidence motion, sources added.
However, the Left leaders threw a spanner in the works. They immediately expressed their unwillingness to support such a move. After returning to their offices, they informed their national leadership about Stalin’s proposal. The national leaders of both the CPI and CPM also reportedly disapproved of the idea. Following detailed discussions, the state leaders conveyed their stand to the DMK leadership on Thursday night (May 7).
Meanwhile, TVK had sent a request letter to the Left parties on Wednesday night seeking support to form the government. On Thursday, TVK joint general secretary CTR Nirmal Kumar visited the offices of both Left parties and personally requested their letters of support. During the Left parties’ state committee meeting held on Friday, the leaders felt it was important for Tamil Nadu to have an elected government before May 10. The failure to do so could have lead to governor’s rule in the state.
After six days and many a machination, the field is now clear. It’s finally time for the ‘thalaiva’ to lead.