Ramadoss Meets Stalin, Triggering Speculations

CHENNAI: PMK founder S Ramadoss calling on Chief Minister M K Stalin at the Secretariat on Friday, ostensibly to press for a caste survey and for implementing 10.5 per cent exclusive reservation for the Vanniyar community, triggered speculations of the PMK making an attempt to forge an alliance with the DMK for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Ramadoss, accompanied by his party’s honorary president G K Mani, had a 35 minute meeting with Stalin and State Ministers Duraimurugan, K N Nehru, M R K Panneerselvam, Thangam Thenarasu, Udhaynidhi Stalin and Rajakannappan and also handed over a letter to the Chief Minister.

In the letter that was made available to the media by the PMK, the party founder stressed on the need for conducting the caste survey that had been an 83-year-old demand in the State and said that there was no legal hurdle in the State taking the caste census as Bihar had already done.

He said the Vanniyar Sangam, since its inception in 1980, had been asking for the caste survey, which was conducted every ten years between 1881 and 1931 and was stopped in 1941 during World War II. It was only appropriate that Tamil Nadu, known as the cradle of social justice, went ahead with its own caste census.

Speaking to media persons after the meeting at the Secretariat, Ramadoss said that he also urged the government to look into the 10.5 per cent exclusive reservation for Vanniyars that had run into trouble with the Supreme Court staying its implementation.

PMK president, Anbumani Ramadoss, too, after calling on the Chief Minister at the Secretariat in October told media persons that he wanted the government to bring in a law providing for 10.5 percent reservation for Vanniyars.

However, both the meetings caused the raising of eyebrows in the political circles as the PMK that had declared itself to be unattached was seen as scouting for an electoral alliance. Though it has three options before it, going with the DMK now is considered to be the best option.

While an alliance with the BJP in the State – whether the PMK is still part of the NDA at the national level or not is not that clear – is fraught with the danger of the party earning a communal colour jeopardizing its political image, the AIADMK is reportedly not in favour of aligning with it hereafter.

AIADMK leaders, particularly general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, is said to have not taken kindly to the PMK snapping ties after the Assembly elections and also getting an MP seat for Anbumani Ramadoss. So with no positive response from the AIADMK to its overtures, the PMK is said to have turned its attention to the DMK.

However, many top DMK honchos are also skeptical about aligning with the PMK as it had earned a distinct anti-Dalit image over the decades. With the VCK still continuing as an electoral partner, how the PMK could be accommodated is the big question boggling down the DMK leaders.

Also there is a perception that the consistent and prolonged campaign carried out by the PMK over the past few decades against the DMK and its leaders had created an antipathy against the DMK among the Vanniyar youth, whose votes might not get converted to the DMK even the party forges an alliance.

Still, some leaders feel that if the PMK’s vote bank could be harnessed in favour of the DMK though an alliance, it would make the party formidable in the fight against the AIADMK and BJP and it is that lobby that would like the PMK to join the DMK-led alliance.

However, as of now, it is learnt that the PMK might not be able to bargain much with the DMK as it did with the AIADMK in the previous Assembly elections in 2021 but had kept its options open.