National

Vaiko's Vote-Face

She banished him for 19 months under POTA. Yet, Vaiko ditches the DMK for Amma. <a href=pti_coverage.asp?gid=13 target=_blank> Updates</a>

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Vaiko's Vote-Face
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For over three months there was speculation that the MDMK leader would quit the DMK-led seven-party Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA). When he did so after much protraction on March 4—a fortnight after assuring his one-time mentor and DMK chief M. Karunanidhi that he would stand by the DPA—Vaiko had intuited a political truth. That there’s no ideology in politics. The price: 35 seats from the AIADMK instead of the 22 that Karunanidhi had agreed to yield.

Early this January, 62-year-old Vaiko had described the MDMK as having the O-positive blood group that could match anybody. Vaiko was bloody serious. One of MDMK’s key activities has been to organise blood donation camps. During his early DMK days, Vaiko was, in fact, convenor of the Dr Karunanidhi Voluntary Blood Donors Association in Tirunelveli. Come to think of it, Vaiko allying with the DMK is as contradictory as his allying with the AIADMK. The MDMK’s very birth was in the crucible of anti-DMK politics. Decrying Karunanidhi for promoting his son M.K. Stalin and other family members, Vaiko felt his very life was in danger in the party. He floated the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1994. Five DMK cadre immolated themselves over Vaiko’s exit. Both the DMK and AIADMK have done flip-flops, allying alternately with the "communal" BJP and the "secular" Congress. (Today, the BJP, however, is on nobody’s radar). The CPI and CPI(M), too, have shifted camps with unfailing regularity.

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What really is Vaiko’s calculation? Karunanidhi, at 82, has to be fighting his last election. Even if he assumes chief ministership this May, it is unlikely that he will spearhead a full term. Son Stalin is the heir apparent. However, according to sources, Vaiko sees himself as the true alternative to the DMK supremo. He reckons that in a post-Karunanidhi scenario, the DMK will split, and if he has more MLAs on his side, he can wean away a significant segment of the DMK to his side, and eventually gun for the top job.

The AIADMK, facing the electorate in the 2004 Lok Sabha poll with just the BJP for an ally, drew a blank. The DMK-led alliance (Congress, PMK, MDMK, CPI, CPI(M) and IUML) swept all the 39 seats, polling an incredible 57.4 per cent votes, while the AIADMK-BJP alliance could secure just 34.8 per cent. Early in 2005, Karunanidhi had come to an understanding with the Congress president Sonia Gandhi that each alliance partner, other than the DMK, would be allotted just four assembly seats for every Lok Sabha seat the party held. Each parliamentary constituency accounts for six assembly constituencies. The surplus two seats per LS constituency would go into the DMK kitty. By this logic, the Congress, which has 10 MPs in the 13th Lok Sabha, would be entitled to contest 40 seats, the MDMK with four MPs 16 seats and so on. Only such a hard bargain would enable the DMK to remain the dominant partner and contest at least 140 seats. Says a DMK leader: "The DMK is averse to getting into a situation in which it would have to depend on allies to muster a majority in the assembly." However, the DMK might have to reckon with a situation where it could emerge as the single largest party but without touching the magic 118 figure for a simple majority.

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In 2001, when Jayalalitha’s grand alliance included the Congress, the now-defunct TMC, Communist parties, PMK, and the Muslim League, the AIADMK alone secured 31.74 per cent voteshare and 132 seats, whereas the DMK, despite just 30 MLAs, accounted for 30.88 per cent of the vote. On their own, there’s little that separates the two leading Dravidian parties. Since coalitions have become the norm, it is the alliance arithmetic that is paramount. Notwithstanding the MDMK and the Dalit Panthers Iyakkam (dpi, allotted 9 seats) joining the AIAIDMK front, the arithmetic does not favour Jayalalitha returning to power. This despite the sops worth Rs 4,000 crores announced in the last three months and the reversal of every policy decision since May 2004.

The DMK leadership, which had a foreboding that Vaiko will give the party’s ninth state conference in Tiruchi a miss, seems to be relieved over MDMK’s exit. "We can spare more seats for other allies now and contest more on our own too," is Karunanidhi’s reckoning. With the CPI having been allotted 10, the CPI(M) likely to get 12, the Congress demanding 60 (and possibly being granted 50), PMK getting 25 to 30, the DMK will be comfortably left with about 135 seats to contest. But clever seat-sharing alone will not ensure victory.

Since 1999, the DMK’s geographical and political space has been shrinking, especially in the 10 southern districts. In the 1999 LS poll, the DMK fielded six candidates in the south, winning only three. In 2004, its southern tally remained three (of a DMK total of 16). In the May 2001 assembly poll, contesting 45 of the 70 southern seats, it won a paltry three. There’s little sign of this trend reversing. With the AIADMK’s traditional Thevar votebase concentrated in the south, and with the MDMK and possibly Vijaykanth on its side (accounting for Naicker/Naidu votes), Jayalalitha may retain her ground in the southern districts. In the north, the PMK will help pool the Vanniyar votes into the DMK kitty.

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The May 2006 poll will drive home the point that TN has been parcelled into little pockets where various parties hold sway depending on caste equations. This may result in the first ever coalition government in the state. At best, a DMK-Congress government or a DMK government with external support from the Congress. In a post-Karunanidhi situation, which is inevitable, there will be another churning. And Vaiko will dream again.

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