Kanimozhi's Political Baptism
Rajathiammal, the second wife of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, they say, wants big things for her daughter, M.K. Kanimozhi, now a Rajya Sabha MP. With the succession wars hotting up in the Karunanidhi clan, Rajathiammal does not want her 40- year-old daughter left behind. Her mother's ambition that Kanimozhi be inducted into the union cabinet has so far remained unfulfilled. Which also explains why unlike the low-profile Dayaluammal, the mother of the feuding siblings M.K. Azhagiri and M.K. Stalin, Rajathiammal is very visible these days. So is Kanimozhi but only at places like the Chennai Sanghamam (which she pulled off with great aplomb two years in a row), a book release function, gender sensitization events, a parliamentary delegation and other such -- which give her the tag of being a political "lightweight".
All that is about to change this week-end when Kanimozhi gets her baptism in the rough and tumble of politics when she addresses the DMK women's wing conference at Cuddalore. Granted that there has been no build up of the kind seen when her half-brother Stalin addressed the youth conference at Tirunelveli last December. But Stalin was to emerge as the heir apparent -- that's why everyone in the DMK went overboard because Kalaignar had hinted that he might be ready to sit in a rocking chair on his porch, metaphorically speaking of course. But as we all know that did not happen, and on his 85th birthday, the patriarch saw his two sons at odds, almost publicly. But that's anotherstory. Kanimozhi, a poet like her father, has looked fetching in ethnic wear so far. What she should demonstrate this week-end is whether she has the stomach for the seamy side of politics, a hint of which is already visible in the ugly spat between her brothers.
Will A Star Be Born?
Why Cuddalore? one might ask. The Dravidian parties like to project that they are rationalist. But scratch the surface and a more superstitious lot will be difficult to find. So if Cuddalore made a political star out of Jayalalithaa, chances are that Kanimozhi might take the same trajectory in politics -- that is the thinking for pickingCuddalore.