Game changer in Tamil Nadu

As it prepares for the May 2021 polls with BJP and Rajinikanth looking to fill the void left by Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi

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By Editor_1
Actor Rajinikanth greets media persons while addressing a press conference at his residence in Chennai on Thursday (3) . The 70-year-old superstar, who is still plays the hero in films, hopes to convert members of his fan club into storm troopers of a political party he is pledged to launch on December 31 -  ANI
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By P.K. Balachandran

Political parties are gearing up for the Tamil Nadu State Assembly elections slated for May 2021. The coming polls could well be a game changer in the history of Tamil Nadu politics with three new factors coming into play.

Firstly, the May 2021 polls will the first to be fought without long standing and charismatic leaders like J. Jayalalithaa of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and M. Karunanidhi of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leading the charge. Jayalalithaa passed away in 2016 and Karunanidhi in 2018, leaving their parties in the hands of lacklustre second rank leaders, whose mettle is yet to be tested.

It will be a testing time for the AIADMK duo Edappadi Palasiswamy, the current Chief Minister, and his deputy O. Panneerselvam. It will be equally challenging for the DMK chief M. K. Stalin, son of Karunanidhi. None of these leaders is a crowd-puller. Party cadres would therefore have to work doubly hard to get votes with none to wave the magic wand as Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi did so manifestly in the past.

BJPs entry

The second unique feature of the May 2021 elections is the entry of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into Tamil Nadu politics. Entrenched in the Indian Central government at New Delhi under the redoubtable Narendra Modi and flush with a string of successes in States across North and North East India, the BJP is keen on capturing the South.

It opened its first account in Karnataka, basically exploiting factional differences in the then ruling Congress-Janata Dal camp. As on date, the BJP is well ensconced in Karnataka and is threatening to impose the Hindu nationalist policy of barring Hindu-Muslim marriages and banning cow slaughter and beef eating.

It has been trying hard to enter Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The BJP scored its first major success in Telangana in the recent Hyderabad City Municipal elections by getting the second largest number of seats in the city council. As it did in Ayodhya in the North Indian State of Uttar Pradesh (where it exploited a conflict around a medieval mosque and a recent Hindu temple to fan a Hindu-Muslim conflict to win Hindu votes), it has been promoting a conflict between the historic 16th.Century Islamic building Charminar and a recently built Hindu shrine in Hyderabad city. The Charminar-Bhagyalakshmi temple conflict fanned by the BJP paid it rich dividends in the Hyderabad civic polls. The party is now set on winning the State Assembly elections in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Tamil Nadu, however, is a different kettle of fish. Heir to the century-old ‘Dravidian’ movement led by Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker, which is based on secularism and social justice for all under-privileged groups irrespective of the religion they follow, Tamil Nadu has resisted the Hindu nationalistic politics of the BJP.

But there has been a change lately. Perhaps due to its weak position following the death of Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK of today has had to agree to the BJP’s proposal to enter into an alliance with it. The BJP is expected to use the seats it will win to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu. The fact that the BJP is entrenched in the Central Government will help it build a base in Tamil Nadu. This will eventually shake the secular foundation of the State.

Rajinikanth’s resolve

The third new factor in the May 2021 polls will be superstar Rajinikanth’s entry. He is promising to rid Tamil Nadu of malfeasance of all kinds, and make politics both people-oriented and ‘spiritual’. The 70-year-old superstar, who is still plays the hero in films, hopes to convert members of his fan club into storm troopers of a political party he is pledged to launch on December 31.

Will the ‘reel hero’ become a ‘real hero’ in the political battlefield? Will he sparkle in the political firmament as ex-stars M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) and Jayalalithaa did? Or, will he disappear without a trace like the matchless thespian Sivaji Ganesan? While some stars have succeeded in turning their fan following into a political asset, many have not. The latter category includes Kamal Haasan, Chiranjivi, and Amitabh Bachchan.

Rajinikanth is widely seen as a cat’s paw of the BJP. It is suspected that he is forming a party at the behest of the BJP. The idea appears to be to split the AIADMK’s vote bank and weaken it. A weakened AIADMK will then be made to bow to the diktats of the BJP and agree to play a subordinate role.

However, it is doubtful if Rajinikanth can fulfil the expectations of the BJP and his fans. Firstly it is abundantly clear that the actor’s heart and soul are not in politics. He has revealed his political ambitions and raising expectations several times in the past 24 years, but has always backed out.

This time too, even as he pledged to start a party, he spoke at length about his delicate health following a kidney transplant. Unlike MGR and Jayalalithaa, who went through the grind and held political offices before bidding for leadership, Rajinikanth has no hands-on political inexperience. And his organization is only a fan club. It is not a political machine with politicized cadres. His bravado notwithstanding, many doubt if he will actually start a party and plunge into the electoral fray in the coming year.

-P K. Balachandran is a senior Colombo-based journalist who in the past two decades, has reported for The Hindustan Times, The New Indian Express and the Economist

 

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