Modi's theatrical gesture not politically insignificant

There has always been a sense of theatre to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His unscheduled visit to Nawaz Sharif’s city Lahore on the way back from Afghanistan had sent a very clear political message to Pakistan and the world then. It is hardly the Prime Minister’s fault that things didn’t pan out too well subsequently with our duplicitous neighbour. Seen in the light of that dramatic gesture, the PM calling on the ageing and ailing patriarch of DMK in Chennai was not a great surprise. However, it did send a loaded political message about how new scenarios cannot be ruled out.

‘Turmoil@Tamil Nadu’ has been the theme for more than a year now since Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospitals on September 22, 2016 and subsequently expired on December 5 that year. Modi, a trusted friend of Jaya, did not come to see her in the 75 days she spent in the hospital, which was the real surprise. Seen in the light of a gesture not made, Modi’s visit to see Karunanidhi can be interpreted as some sort of insurance for the future.

There may be drastic changes if the 2019 election results emerge in such manner as to leave no clear winner. The BJP could still expect to be the single largest party but may need allies to cobble a coalition, if the Congress doesn’t quite make it back strongly enough from its 47 MPs performance of 2014. That is when Tamil Nadu—Pondy’s 40 seats could play a significant role in government formation. This is just one possible scenario but is not to be discounted because the possibilities of this happening are really high.

All of us well know that politics is the art of the possible. And there is just nothing like strange bedfellows in Indian politics. The same DMK was a partner in the A.B. Vajpayee government upto 2004 and switched sides to enjoy uninterrupted power for 10 more years. That could be called a stroke of genius on the part of the patriarch who knew the nuts and bolts well enough to do brilliantly through the rough and tumble of politics.  The party may, however, need more than a Chanakya like shift in time if it is to escape the consequences of the 2G scam in which the reading of the verdict is not too far.

The 2019 national poll scene is going to be interesting enough, but it could be spectacularly dramatic in Tamil Nadu as the list of major players is all set to expand from a basic two Dravidian fronts to several new alignments. Kamal Haasan’s yet-to-be named party will be in the fray for sure. “Will he, won’t he?” Rajinikanth may well have a party by then. The BJP would be doing its best to ride piggyback on a front that might include Rajini’s party and they might cobble an agreement with the EPS-OPS on seats.

Throw in the fringe player Vijayakanth, whose pronouncements are getting increasingly indistinct, and the eternal politicos of TN like Vaiko, Thirumavalavan and the Ramadosses, whose son will head the election arm, G.K. Vasan  and the rump faction of AIADMK (Sasikala) steered by her nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran and you have a really big political melting pot. Who goes with who could well be the million dollar question to which the answers will only unravel gradually over the next year. The current political flux would make any prediction game futile.

Not until the Assembly meets again and goes through the process of a trust or no-confidence motion vote can there be any realistic way of assessing the future unless, of course, one is an astrologer and given to predictions going by the position of the stars and planets. What may have led the pundits to add extra meaning to the Modi-Karuna meeting was the then nearness of the 2G verdict. There is very little the Executive can do about the verdict, something that was seen in the Jayalalithaa DA case in which the politicians had no say. The PM could send his Law Minister down to Chennai to meet Jaya - the then CM allowed the Union Minister's car to drive right into her reserved portico at the Secretariat - but could give no assurances on how the verdict would go.

The Modi gesture to the DMK, a party that is run like a family concern now after the party structure eroded over time thanks to Karuna heirs rising, was significant. It may not bring immediate results in the sense that DMK can't be expected to walk out of its latest 13-year alliance with the Congress and switch sides. If in a day that seems far off now there is a change of alignment it will be traced back to the grand gesture of Narendra Modi. Also, it breaks the ice of political relationships that have been devoid of courtesy in the time that the MK-Jaya rivalry ran for decades. So, Modi has in a small way changed something in Tamil Nadu politics.