CHENNAI: Among the four DMK representatives in the UPA government who have now been denied a ticket for the May 13 Lok Sabha election, V Radhika Selvi’s is a classic case of a rise too fast and a fall so sudden.
Her phenomenal growth - from a demure housewife to the Minister of State for Home within a short span of three years - had intrigued many even within the party.
But it was part of the caste politics that the DMK is always too keen to play.
In fact, even her nomination as the DMK candidate from Tiruchendur Lok Sabha constituency in 2004 was a surprise that the party pulled on its own cadre and leaders. Her husband N Venkatesa Panniyar, who was an affluent do-gooder for the local people and a ‘rowdy’ for the police, was gunned downed in an ‘encounter’ in Chennai on September 26, 2003, during the AIADMK regime.
The fact that Panniyar had been more a AIADMK sympathiser did not prevent the DMK from fielding Radhika Selvi, then just 27 years old, as it candidate from the Nadar- dominated Tiruchendur constituency. The young widow, with her just born son, Rakshan, in her arms went about canvassing votes for her, cashing in on the sympathy wave.
Though her victory should also be attributed to the rainbow alliance comprising parties like the PMK, CPI, CPM, Congress and DMK, her performance as a member of the Lok Sabha was nothing to write home about till 2007, when the DMK gave a bigger surprise, nay it was a shock, to its own partymen and others.
The first time MP was suddenly nominated to the Union Ministry when Dayanidhi Maran resigned his Cabinet post. In the reshuffle that ensued, Radhika Selvi was made Union Minister of State for Home.
Though the DMK may use the ruse that the Tiruchendur constituency has gone missing after the delimitation to justify the denial of ticket for her, the suspicion that arises is if Radhika Selvi has lost her utility value.
With the ululations over the killing of her husband - effectively streamlined into votes by presenting the vignette of a widow with a babe-in-arm seeking local support - having died down, the DMK can always find newer avenues to reach out to the Nadars. But for the woman, used as a cat’s paw to garner an influential community’s backing, the sudden glory that she gained in three years is gone in just one stroke.
