Tamil Nadu’s Assembly elections ended on May 16 last but party hopping hasn’t, perhaps because in a few months from now, the State will be heading for elections to the local bodies. Your corporator/ panchayat member is the one you would possibly go to for solving civic problems, like garbage pile-up, overflowing sewage from a manhole or mosquito infestation in the neighbourhood, since people like him are at the base of the governance pyramid.
But the downside is he gets to decide whether or not your request will be addressed immediately, which is possibly why he ends up laughing all the way to the bank.
Shortly before he quit in a huff in April last, rebel DMDK leader Chandrakumar wrote to party boss Vijayakant suggesting he do a combo deal with the DMK for the Assembly and the civic polls. Getting elected to the local bodies would help functionaries who had spent lots of money in vain over the years for the party, he reasoned. Implied in it was the possibility of pecuniary gain. But Vijayakant rejected it. Ever since the DMDK-led Third Front was routed in the Assembly elections and both Vijayakant and G K Vasan’s Tamil Maanila Congress walked out of the six-party alliance, both parties are weighing options for the civic elections. While the other four parties of the Third Front — that constitute the People’s Welfare Front — claim they will face the civic elections together, the final word is yet to be said as the VCK’s Thirumavalavan is under pressure from within to go it alone.
The possibility of Vasan’s political realignment emerged after he had a long meeting with DMK’s Leader of Opposition M K Stalin a few weeks ago. The meeting happened in the backdrop of a leadership crisis in the Congress after EVKS Elangovan resigned as the head of the State party unit taking moral responsibility for the party’s poor show in the Assembly elections. Party chief Sonia Gandhi and veepee Rahul have patiently interviewed quite a few candidates but are yet to decide on the new head of the faction-ridden Tamil Nadu unit.
Outgoing chief Elangovan is doing his best to scuttle the chances of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram running the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) by proxy by getting a loyalist named for the hot seat. Amid the mess, combative spokesperson and actor Khushboo, inducted into the party by Elangovan, is in Trishanku territory not knowing how the scales will tilt. With Chidambaram’s son Karti sniping at the DMK for ‘insulting the Congress’, will their poll pact survive?
That’s where Vasan gets into the picture. He and the Congress cannot possibly stay in one grouping since it was he who broke away from the parent party. Anyway the Congress can seriously start thinking about the civic elections only after it settles the TNCC leadership question.
Amid the churning is the visible warming up of ties between the AIADMK and the BJP. At a function on Saturday for laying the foundation to extend the Chennai Metro Rail project, there was visible warmth between Union Minister for Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. “Tamil Nadu, under the leadership of Jayalalithaaji, is a performing State. I would like to compliment the Council of Ministers headed by her for the good work done,” he said. For her part, Jayalalithaa described Naidu as a trusted friend of Tamil Nadu.
“The extension of the Metro project happened only because of the efforts of Naidu and due to the cooperation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” she emphasised.
Add to that the recent meeting Union Minister for Power Piyush Goyal had with Jayalalithaa on reforming the State electricity board — coming as it did after the pre-poll carping on not being given an appointment — and it’s clear that the atmospherics have changed.
Given the subtle change in equations in this Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram season — as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee described defections — would the Chandrakumars be salivating at seats in the civic bodies if the posts carried little or no discretionary powers? For example, extinguishing discretion has done a world of good at the passport offices and put the touts out of business. You can get your passport within 21 days if your papers are in order. No hassle.
Tamil Nadu does have an Ombudsman for looking into complaints of corruption against functionaries of local bodies — both elected and the government employees. But discretion is the beast as it lends itself to the opportunity of monetising it. It’s time we tamed it.
Suresh Sundaram
Assistant Resident Editor, Tamil Nadu
E-mail: ssuresh@newindianexpress.com