Shades of Hamlet sans Prince of Denmark

Chennai: This neither seems like a French spring nor any Rousseau in the making. But when senior CPI (M) leader Nilotpal Basu elegantly summed up in a television programme recently that the Left parties, in taking the initiative to form the ‘People’s Welfare Alliance (PWA)’ ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, are “experimenting with a new combination” of classes and marginalised sections of the people, he was referring to breaking away from the ‘dominant regional parties’ that have shaped the state’s political milieu.

Put an ear to the ground and things can hardly be more crystal clear, as the events of the last two months of hectic political activity in the run-up to the May 16 elections have been unfolding.

The grassroots dynamics has rather been one of reconfiguring leadership roles of the visible campaigners, both inside and outside the PWA, to the point of old caste identities re-emerging in new bottle.

A good case in point is the MDMK leader Mr Vaiko who began with a bang as coordinator of the PWA. Straining every nerve and even risking a war of words with the DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, which at one stage touched a new low, and striking new equations with the two main Left parties — CPI and CPI (M) — and the Dalit leader, VCK’s Thol. Thirumavalavan, Vaiko’s Herculean efforts eventually saw Mr Vijayakanth, the actor-turned-politician and founder of DMDK, being the ‘prize catch’ of PWA. It was a process in which the actor’s wife and star campaigner, Premalatha Vijayakanth had also played a crucial role.

The PWA got bigger with the G.K. Vasan-led Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) joining their front. And as nominations opened, Mr Vaiko declared he will contest for the Assembly from Kovilpatti, a safe seat in many ways, held by the CPI several times earlier and forming part of a political terrain where the OBC ‘Naickers’ have a say in the way the votes will swing in any election. Vaiko had even readied a mission plan 2016-21 for Kovilpatti’s development.   

Nonetheless, apparently sensing a nasty faceoff with the other dominant OBC group in the South — the ‘Thevars’ — in the backdrop of Vaiko supporting inter-caste marriages and his strong condemnation of a recent instance of ‘honour killing’ in Udumalpet where a Dalit youth Sankar was done to death for marrying an upper caste girl, the MDMK leader suddenly withdrew from the poll fray, citing an alleged ‘game-plan’ by the DMK to foment Vaiko-centirc caste clashes.

Knowingly or unknowingly, a raw nerve had been touched, though Vaiko had contested several elections from that region in the past. He even emphatically went on record that he was above all castes and how he deeply respected the late leader of the Forward Bloc, Pasumponn Muthuramalinga Thevar. But its electoral implications for the PWA turned out to be even weightier.

From being a big bang leader of PWA, Vaiko backing out of the Kovilpatti race donning a self-effacing cap, made the front suddenly look like ‘Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark’.

This dramatic development is seen in political circles as Vijayakanth’s, Vasan’s and the Left parties’ leveraging power with the voters taking a hit. And first ground reactions also bear this out.

“No free rides for Captain in Ulundurpet – part of the OBC Vanniyars belt in North Tamil Nadu from where Vijayakanth is contesting this time,” says S.K. Chandrasekharan, AIADMK’s Villupuram district treasurer.

“People will not be deceived this time as Vijayakanth hardly did anything either for Virudhachalam or Rishivandhiyam, from where he had contested successfully in 2006 and 2011 Assembly elections respectively,” he says.

As the actor instinctively rewired his leadership role, hopping from one constituency to another, Chandrasekharan is almost certain that voters will not be taken in this time.  

But a new small gainer from the rewiring this time could be Thirumavalavan, whose VCK cadres “are striking a better rapport with the actor’s fans in parts of the Vanniyar belt, like in Panruti, Cuddalore, Kattumannarkovil, and Kurunjipadi than the VCK-PMK combination in the 2011 Assembly election,” said a cross-section of voters from those places to whom DC spoke to.

While this puts pressure on the way the PMK’s youth wing leader Dr Anbumani Ramadoss has redefined his leadership profile in this election, bulk of the Vanniyar belt looks to be heading for basically a triangular contest between the AIADMK, DMK and the PMK.   

The DMK has not been insulated from these leadership swirls either, an unusual feature of the 2016 Assembly elections, wherein campaigns seem to be making the leaders, rather than one strong leader calling the shots and giving a direction to the poll campaign.

The image makeover of the DMK’s youth wing leader and party treasurer, MK Stalin, since his ‘Namakku Naame’ tour since September last year, has clearly projected him as the ‘future hope’ of the DMK.

Still, Stalin has to swim against the current as the veteran DMK patriarch,
93-year-old Muthuvel Karunanidhi, has dispelled the ‘double SIM syndrome’ in the DMK’s leadership by unambiguously asserting that he will be the Chief Minister again if the DMK is voted to power.

And from scripting historical and reformist stories that assiduously mixed socialist ideals with the rationalist approach of the Dravidian movement in his early days, to now penning the screenplay for a television serial on the ‘revolutionary’ Vaishnavite saint Sri Ramanuja, it is a sea change over the decades that has marked Karunanidhi’s leadership evolution itself.