Chennai Corner

Ignoring the Birthday Boy
CM Karunanidhi who turned 86 (in TN, the calculation is that he began his 87th year) got and also gave an early gift. What he got may not have been on his list of favourites, particularly when a young man, half his age, dashed to the city for a few hours to pep up his cadre with the ultimate aim of dislodging the Dravidian parties and bring back Kamaraj (read Congress) Rule to the state. Karunanidhi did not even get an early birthday greeting from the young man who goes by the name of Rahul Gandhi and has made it his mission to rejuvenate the party. In fact Rahul Gandhi, who also did not call on the octogenarian the last time he was here, did a ditto enactment of that visit although it must be said that he barely spent three hours in the city.

For a man who has queues of people greeting him at his two houses and at his party office, Anna Arivalayam, and plays host to the who’s who of bureaucracy, cops, corporates bearing gifts and flowers, Rahul Gandhi’s omission in calling on him must be galling him. Still Karunanidhi can comfort himself with the fact that Rahul’s mother, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, goes out of her way to pay due respects to the DMK patriarch. Of course, to be cynical, she needs to because DMK MPs are propping up the UPA.

The Young Need Training
Rahul’s agenda was to address the 350 youth including the newly-elected team of the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress office-bearers, who are undergoing a five-day leadership training camp at a college owned by TNCC president K V Thangabalu. “Oldies” who have brought a bad name to the Congress in the last 40 years with their petty fights were completely sidelined while Rahul had a lively question and answer session with the young cadre. But with news reaching him of the newly elected leaders also feuding, Rahul Gandhi delivered a sharp rap on the knuckles telling them to “look beyond factionalism and work without fear.” Old habits do die hard. But the Congress can only be revived if he can break it. For inspiration he should look at Mamtadi who is within striking distance of dislodging the left after nearly four decades.

And the Return Gift
It’s a promise Karunanidhi made last year while launching the Kalaignar Health Insurance Scheme but the actual gifting happened on the eve of his birthday. Karunanidhi gifted his Gopalapuram house – where he lived for five decades that saw him during different phases of his political life – to a trust named after his mother Anjugam for starting a hospital for the poor. The understanding is that the trust will take over after the lifetime of Karunanidhi and his wife, Dayalu Amma, and the hospital will be named Kalaignar Karunanidhi Hospital.

Bought in 1955 (from Sarabeswara Iyer), Karunanidhi had in 1968 made a deed of settlement by which his sons Azhagiri, Tamizharasu and Stalin would inherit it. The three sons signed a document last September signing away their rights to the house whose market value is Rs eight crores. “My children never go against my wishes and they haven't done so in this matter too,” the Kalaignar boasted. Famous last words if you take into account Azhagiri’s recent rebellion over his father naming Stalin to succeed him?

By the way, Karunanidhi, who likes to project that he’s all for women’s rights, had left both his daughters – Selvi and Kanimozhi – out on this particular inheritance. Of course this carping is academic now. As for Karunanidhi’s reaction to gifting away his house which is in a prime area of the city, “If I were a theist, I would have said that donating my residence has given me atma trupthi (satisfaction to my soul), but being an atheist, all I will say is that I am satisfied with what I have done.”

The mark of a loser
In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections last year, AIADMK chief Jayalalitha looked like a winner, even talked like a winner on counting day before the verdict hidden in the ballot boxes revealed the opposite driving her underground. But a year later, she looks like a loser even if she still shows spunk in her speech and sometimes speaks like a silly schoolgirl, e.g.: "The new assembly resembles the hat of a Puducherry policeman."

Her big disadvantage is that party leaders are deserting her day by day and nothing says more convincingly that you are out for the count as when your flock starts looking for new pastures. And if you are the imperious Jayalalitha, nothing shouts out that you’ve been brought down a peg or two as when a party leader ignores your invitation to talk and walks out of the party. That’s what Muthuswamy, AIADMK in charge of Erode and Namakkal districts, did this week after spending 38 years – that is the lifetime of the party, for that's how long it has been around since MG Ramachandran founded the AIADMK in 1972.

Muthuswamy, the former transport minister is an influential member of the politically strong Kongu Vellala Gounder community in Erode and once was a trusted lieutenant of Jayalalithaa, even chalking out her campaign route during polls. Earlier he was a highly regarded member of the MGR cabinet.

Instead of doing a tête-à-tête with Amma, he poured his heart out about being sidelined in a 14-page letter. Some might think this is a bit creepy but it shows Jayalalitha’s cult status. Referring to a car accident that she had after which she lost her footwear and ended up borrowing his while he went barefoot, Muthuswamy writes, “At that time, I wiped the blood on your face with my handkerchief. I am preserving that footwear and the kerchief. That’s the kind of loyalty we showed but you ignored it.”

His spurning of her invitation to talk was all she needed to expel him and three of his supporters for “anti-party” activities.

Next stop, the DMK
It’s no secret that “chinamma” (Sasikala Natarajan) is blamed for the AIADMK steadily losing ground. Over a period of time, she is believed to have put “her men” in the inner circle and sidelined loyalists. So loyalists have walked through the exit door into the waiting arms of the DMK.

All expectations are that Muthuswamy will join the DMK after his meeting with Kalaignar on June 7. As a result, the DMK will get stronger in the western districts, till recently considered an AIADMK stronghold. The AIADMK got its first jolt in that district when former minister T.M. Selvaganapathy crossed over to the DMK last year. “I quit the AIADMK, then Sathiamoorthy left and later Anita Radhakrishnan left too to join the DMK. The western region used to be MGR’s fort but now it has become a DMK bastion. The party nurtured by MGR is now being wasted in the hands of a coterie,” Selvaganapathy, who is now being nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the DMK, says.

Maybe Jayalalitha is listening because the earlier speculation that she will nominate Dr S Venkatesh, a relative of Sasikala, has turned out to be wrong. Instead she has opted for Manoj Pandian, the son of a former speaker. Also – even if belatedly – she seems to be plugging the vacuum in Erode district by nominating K V Ramalingam, Erode district secretary, to the Rajya Sabha. With the AIADMK MLAs numbering 57 and allies including MDMK, CPI and CPM coughing up 18 MLAs, her nominees are poised to go to the House of Elders.