National

Parties Within Parties

The Karunanidhi clan’s internal intrigues are worthy of a potboiler

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Parties Within Parties
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It was the wedding of the year for Tamil Nadu. But does the face of unity put up at this week’s nuptials of M. Karunanidhi’s grandson and Madurai strongman M.K. Azhagiri’s son signal that DMK’s internal wars have finally come to an end? Not likely. The DMK first family, with its many-layered intrigues, has for the past few years given TV soaps a run for their trps. Take the “family get-together” that happened just three days before the wedding. On November 14, at a star hotel in Chennai, the patriarch’s grand nephews—the Maran brothers—hosted a lavish do where the guest list was more selective. Deputy CM M.K. Stalin and Azhagiri were there, but not Kanimozhi. More to the point, the ink had then not yet dried on telecom minister A. Raja’s resignation from the Union cabinet.

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Stalin and Azhagiri flew into Chennai specifically to attend the do. This alignment too wasn’t without interest. For, Stalin has always rallied for the Marans, but Azhagiri? This was the man who’d torched the Marans’ newspaper offices three years back over a readers’ poll they had run saying his chances of becoming CM (ahead of Stalin) were zilch. The violent faceoff had led to a two-year-long feud between the Karunanidhis and Marans. But now here he was at the soiree. And this when Azhagiri was conspicuous by his absence at all the panic  meetings of the DMK over the A. Raja affair. So were the patriarch’s two sons aligning with the Marans to gloat at the exit of Raja, who is close to their stepsister Kanimozhi and her mother Rajathiammal? (The Marans’ hostility owes to the fact that Raja replaced Dayanidhi as telecom minister in UPA-I. He was asked to resign from the cabinet by Karunanidhi after the afore-mentioned spat. Raja had continued in the post in UPA-II.)

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It’s no secret that Dayanidhi, who seemingly came back as Karunanidhi’s lieutenant in Delhi in UPA-II, was hoping to be catapulted back into telecom but found his claim edged out by Kanimozhi’s championing of Raja’s cause. This came after her own claim for a cabinet seat was overlooked (despite Rajathiammal’s express desire) as Azhagiri and Dayanidhi were picked as the family’s representatives. As a sop, Karunanidhi had to give in when Kanimozhi reportedly demanded telecom for Raja.

Yet, Azhagiri’s arrival at the do stumped many observers here. That he still resented the Marans had become clear after last year’s Lok Sabha elections. Even after the reconciliation ( Stalin and sister Selvi had worked hard to get the Marans back into the family fold in December ’08), sources hinted all was not well between the volatile, rustic Azhagiri and the urbane Dayanidhi. But the latter knows that when it comes to elections, Azhagiri is the boss. When he went into a big sulk and took off to Ooty saying he was resigning as in-charge of the Thirumangalam bypoll campaign over two years ago, the Maran brothers and Stalin rushed to the hills to mollify him. Just as well, because the Thirumangalam “formula” (cash for votes) that Azhagiri gave the party helped the DMK successively win in all 11 assembly bypolls.

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But when it comes to Kanimozhi, it now looks like Stalin, Azhagiri and the Marans are on the same side. Kanimozhi, it seems, was kept in the dark about the Chennai do and thus out of the happy family picture (though, of course, she was duly present at the wedding in Madurai three days later). That it happened at the most awkward juncture in her fledgling political career added to the piquancy.

Much to Karunanidhi’s dismay, his two later wives and their progeny have made “his life really difficult”, as an amused analyst says. “It’s just like the films, or the epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, where the patriarch is caught between the competitive demands of his wives.” All watchers of the family know it’s a constant soap opera that unfolds, sometimes behind closed doors, sometimes for the public to snigger at—as when the Marans came to wish their grand uncle, Karunanidhi, on his birthday on June 3, ’08, and were tossed out by Azhagiri.

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The grand family reunion came about six months later, but whether all was forgiven and forgotten is still in the realm of speculation. Many swear it was the pragmatic thing to do. Azhagiri had begun to suffer from an image deficit after Sun TV, with its huge reach, started projecting him as nothing more than a goonda. Besides, Karunanidhi and anointed successor Stalin would find it a lot tougher to win elections with Sun TV ranged against them. It was a quid pro quo, they needed the media clout of the Marans; the latter needed the might of the state for their myriad businesses to prosper.

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So, was there closure on the issue that drove the Marans and the Karunanidhi family apart? Even after the November 14 party, it is difficult to tell whether the mercurial Azhagiri is onboard for good. It seems the family comes together and draws apart on a case-by-case basis.

For instance, Azhagiri, with statements like “only Karunanidhi is my leader”, has made it clear that Stalin cannot hope for a smooth transition. He, in fact, halted Karunanidhi’s move to hand over the CM’s seat to his younger son. So on the succession issue at least, a Mahabharata is surely in the offing.

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