CHENNAI: Even a die-hard DMK loyalist would scarcely believe that the party could win elections on its own. Such wild dreams are no more entertained as the slide of the Dravidian major is so apparent. Realisation too has dawned upon the cadre long before that the party needs to sew up a credible alliance to put up a strong fight in any battle for the ballot. The 2016 assembly poll, in which the DMK is hoping to stage a come back, is no different and the party is leaving no stone unturned to cobble up a ‘mahajot’.
When the party is hardly battle ready, the ageing patriarch M Karunanidhi flummoxed everyone with his assertion last week that the party was ready to go for the kill.
“The DMK is prepared to face the elections anytime,” he said on a day when a party panel set up to draft the election manifesto commenced its work. Is this then a calculated move or mere chest thumping by the old war horse?
While the cadre may take it with a pinch of salt, for others the old man of Gopalapuram appears to be putting the cart before the horse. For, the battle lines are yet to be drawn and DMK’s efforts for a grand alliance is yet to concretise. Potential allies continue to remain as such since they are still hesitant to jump on to the DMK bandwagon.
Other hurdles staring the party are the unsettled leadership issue as well as the simmering dissidence down under except in the Delta districts and the northern region. With many former satraps either marginalised or forced to make a retreat, the district units are plagued by internal rivalry as is the case in Salem or Coimbatore apart from the south.
Once known for its well oiled and ‘efficient’ poll machine, the DMK remains a pale image of its former self with rivals having mastered the art to beat it at its own game. It needs no hard labour to find out the reason. The Thirumangalam formula or the notorious ‘Azhagiri formula’, a euphemism for ‘cash for vote’, introduced in 2009 has relegated the traditional election apparatus.
Yet, the DMK maintains that this is no chest thumping. “It is a well calibrated strategy attuned to the dynamics of the assembly poll. Elections are expected around March-April next year. In case the AIADMK takes a gamble and advances it, we should not be taken off-guard,” explains TKS Elangovan, party organising secretary. “We are confident of forming a formidable alliance, a winning combination. Our allies will be on board as the polls closes in. To retain their bargaining power, they appear to be keeping a distance,” was his reasoning to questions about the DMK still scouting for allies.
But, it fails to cut much ice with analysts. “Now, the DMK is ideologically bankrupt. With more vocal new champions espousing the cause of Tamil, social justice and non-brahmin fraternity, its ideological discourse has reached a dead end. It’s political articulation too fails to connect with the Pan-Indian mobility of the aspirational gen-next Tamils.And, it has become a ‘catch-all’ party like the Congress,” says K Thirunavukkarasu, an University of Hyderabad faculty. Even the shortcomings of the AIADMK government, on which the DMK is banking heavily, are not favouring the party to regain lost ground, he argues.
Already battling the 2G spectrum scam, which remains a Damocle’s sword over its head, the CBI cases against its former posterboy Dayanidhi Maran has come to haunt the DMK.
And given this situation, it remains to be seen what the manifesto panel, which includes the nonagenarian's pet daughter Kanimozhi, could do to turn the tide. Also whether Stalin, with his two-month-long tour of all the 234 constituencies beginning next month, could be able to bring about a turnaround. Political observers, however, are sceptical and the DMK still the odds are staked against the party.