Jubilant after her recent acquittal in a long-running corruption case, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, made her first public appearance in 217 days on Friday. Massive crowds, fed copious amounts of biriyani and alcohol, braved the blazing sun to line up along the roads of Chennai to cheer for her, as she rode to the Raj Bhavan to stake claim to forming the government.
Jayalalithaa takes oath as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for the fifth time in a glittering ceremony at the University of Madras on Saturday. The very next day, her arch rival, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam hopes to put up a show of strength by organising a large public rally in Madurai.
Caught off-guard by Jayalalithaa's acquittal, old timers within the DMK whisper that they were banking on a guilty verdict in the Karnataka High Court, which they hoped would take her out of the political equation in the 2016 assembly elections. But the clean chit by the court, however flawed it may be, has crashed their hopes. Party leaders are keeping a brave front.
“After the Bangalore High Court judgement (acquitting Jaya), everyone has been saying that something is wrong and that there are calculation errors,” said KS Radhakrishnan, spokesperson for the DMK. “But apart from that there are so many major issues like lack of governance, price rise, unemployment. We have to take these issues to the people. We are preparing for elections and motivating our cadres, we can face the election anytime,” he said.
The Sunday rally is being called "A Rally to Question”. DMK leaders say it would draw attention to the worsening economic situation of the state, unemployment, lack of governance, deteriorating law and order, as well as a visible increase in corruption – all of which they attribute to the AIADMK rule.
Internal battles
What is interesting to political observers is the choice of venue for the rally. Madurai, a district in southern Tamil Nadu, is symbolic of the battelines within the DMK. Party President M Karunanidhi's elder son MK Alagiri, former cabinet minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, had won the 2009 Lok Sabha election from here. Alagiri had been engaged in a bitter turf war with MK Stalin, his stepbrother and Karunanidhi's younger son. In 2014, he was removed from the party. He continues to live in Madurai.
“It’s two mangoes with one stone,” said a DMK insider on condition of anonymity. “This rally is not only the start of DMK’s election campaign for 2016, but it is also the very first big rally that MK Stalin will lead without DMK President Karunanidhi. This rally being held in Madurai is also a signal to the cadre that Karuna’s elder son Alagiri and a staunch critic of Stalin, is no longer a power centre,” he said.
By holding the rally in Madurai, the DMK is also deliberately targeting its weak zone. The southern districts of Tamil Nadu have predominantly voted for the AIADMK while the northern and western belts preferred the DMK. While the Dravidian movement took strong root in the western districts of Thanjavur and Trichy in the 1970s – areas where there was a large population of land-owning upper caste zamindars – the southern districts are dominated by the Thevar caste, which has historically supported the AIADMK.
This voting pattern was visible in the campaign routes taken by AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran who traveled from the south to the north while campaigning, whereas DMK leader Karunanidhi always traveled from the northern districts to the south. By deliberately reversing his father's trend, DMK’s heir apparent MK Stalin, observers say, appears to be making a calculated bid to attack his own party's weakest spots first.
“Even if Jaya’s case heads to the Supreme Court on appeal, the DMK has to fight Jayalalithaa in the elections,” said Gnani Sankaran, author and political critic. “Jaya is the only campaigner for her party. Therefore the DMK cannot depend only on the case. They are going to have to talk about issues,” he said.
A resurgent AIADMK, on a high with the return of Amma, scoffed at the DMK’s plans. “They are trying to copy what we did when we were in the Opposition,” said Rabi Bernard, an AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP who is the party spokesperson. “We had a massive rally in Madurai. They want to imitate us. And imitation is the best form of flattery. Karunanidhi is running out of ideas. God save Karuna, even though he doesn’t believe in God.”
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Jayalalithaa takes oath as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for the fifth time in a glittering ceremony at the University of Madras on Saturday. The very next day, her arch rival, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam hopes to put up a show of strength by organising a large public rally in Madurai.
Caught off-guard by Jayalalithaa's acquittal, old timers within the DMK whisper that they were banking on a guilty verdict in the Karnataka High Court, which they hoped would take her out of the political equation in the 2016 assembly elections. But the clean chit by the court, however flawed it may be, has crashed their hopes. Party leaders are keeping a brave front.
“After the Bangalore High Court judgement (acquitting Jaya), everyone has been saying that something is wrong and that there are calculation errors,” said KS Radhakrishnan, spokesperson for the DMK. “But apart from that there are so many major issues like lack of governance, price rise, unemployment. We have to take these issues to the people. We are preparing for elections and motivating our cadres, we can face the election anytime,” he said.
The Sunday rally is being called "A Rally to Question”. DMK leaders say it would draw attention to the worsening economic situation of the state, unemployment, lack of governance, deteriorating law and order, as well as a visible increase in corruption – all of which they attribute to the AIADMK rule.
Internal battles
What is interesting to political observers is the choice of venue for the rally. Madurai, a district in southern Tamil Nadu, is symbolic of the battelines within the DMK. Party President M Karunanidhi's elder son MK Alagiri, former cabinet minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, had won the 2009 Lok Sabha election from here. Alagiri had been engaged in a bitter turf war with MK Stalin, his stepbrother and Karunanidhi's younger son. In 2014, he was removed from the party. He continues to live in Madurai.
“It’s two mangoes with one stone,” said a DMK insider on condition of anonymity. “This rally is not only the start of DMK’s election campaign for 2016, but it is also the very first big rally that MK Stalin will lead without DMK President Karunanidhi. This rally being held in Madurai is also a signal to the cadre that Karuna’s elder son Alagiri and a staunch critic of Stalin, is no longer a power centre,” he said.
By holding the rally in Madurai, the DMK is also deliberately targeting its weak zone. The southern districts of Tamil Nadu have predominantly voted for the AIADMK while the northern and western belts preferred the DMK. While the Dravidian movement took strong root in the western districts of Thanjavur and Trichy in the 1970s – areas where there was a large population of land-owning upper caste zamindars – the southern districts are dominated by the Thevar caste, which has historically supported the AIADMK.
This voting pattern was visible in the campaign routes taken by AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran who traveled from the south to the north while campaigning, whereas DMK leader Karunanidhi always traveled from the northern districts to the south. By deliberately reversing his father's trend, DMK’s heir apparent MK Stalin, observers say, appears to be making a calculated bid to attack his own party's weakest spots first.
“Even if Jaya’s case heads to the Supreme Court on appeal, the DMK has to fight Jayalalithaa in the elections,” said Gnani Sankaran, author and political critic. “Jaya is the only campaigner for her party. Therefore the DMK cannot depend only on the case. They are going to have to talk about issues,” he said.
A resurgent AIADMK, on a high with the return of Amma, scoffed at the DMK’s plans. “They are trying to copy what we did when we were in the Opposition,” said Rabi Bernard, an AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP who is the party spokesperson. “We had a massive rally in Madurai. They want to imitate us. And imitation is the best form of flattery. Karunanidhi is running out of ideas. God save Karuna, even though he doesn’t believe in God.”