Fronts, Castes And Squabbles

In Tamil Nadu, outright confusion and inchoate alliances mark the last general election of the millennium. In a major departure from the conventional two-cornered contest, the state is witnessing a three-cornered fight. The first front, the nda, consisting of the ruling parties,the dmk, bjp, pmk, mdmk and trc,followed a path of clumsy cooption. The second front, made up of the major opposition parties,the aiadmk, the Congress, the cpi(m) and the cpi,meekly accepted whatever Jayalalitha was willing to dole out. The third, led by G.K. Moopanar's tmc, has many Dalit organisations and other parties which failed to get a seat in either of the fronts, but is suffering from the Oliver Twist syndrome, where everyone wants more, and looks too fragile to survive as one front till the polls.

Similarly, dmk chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi presides over a coalition in which every party views the other with suspicion. Though, unlike other formations, the nda was the first front to be formed in the state. With the fall of the Vajpayee government, all the parties which voted for the bjp-led government in the confidence motion decided to contest the election together.

But instead of working out a durable seat-sharing formula, the coalition was busy with its one-point agenda of blaming Jayalalitha for bringing down the government and forcing an election on the people. This front received its first shock when actor Rajnikanth refused to extend his support to any political formation in the state. Then the seat-sharing became a highly contentious issue. The dmk's idea of clubbing the two Vanniyar caste-based parties,the pmk led by Dr Ramdoss and the trc led by petroleum minister Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthy,boomeranged badly. Of the nine seats given to these two parties, the pmk gave just one seat to the trc, leading to acrimonious statement warfare. The bjp, which was clamouring for seven seats, had to reconcile to six, just one more than the five seats it contested last time in the company of Jayalalitha. The mdmk, which was insisting upon parity among the alliance parties, a precedent set by Jayalalitha in '98 where the bjp, pmk and mdmk contested five seats each, had to stomach being relegated to the fourth place. The hitch in the case of the mdmk was caused primarily due the pressure brought in by the dmk's youth wing, which was against admitting the party into the alliance. Karunanidhi, instead of campaigning, had to play the role of mediator.

On the other hand, the aiadmk-led front worked out its seat-sharing without much ado. The primary reason for the smooth sailing of this front stems from Jayalalitha's style of functioning. The mercurial former chief minister simply ignored her alliance partners' state leaders and worked her way through direct interaction with the national leaders. In a swift move, she identified her stronghold seats and left the rest to her allies. Of the 40 seats, the aiadmk is contesting 23, the Congress 12, the cpi(m) and the cpi two each. Barring Nilgiris, where former minister R. Prabhu is contesting, the Congress is weak in all the other seats and the aiadmk does not have much presence. For the Left parties, she has given each one of them one good seat and one bad. We know our strength and weakness. We also know our allies' strength and weakness. So Amma was able to work out a seat-sharing arrangement quickly and she is off for canvassing. The fight in the other camps only proves our leader's vision and it will pay rich dividends, observes senior aiadmk leader V.R. Nedunchezhiyan.

The third front, conceived by Moopanar, is facing an uphill task of keeping major ally Pudiya Tamizhagam (PT) within its fold. Led by fiery Dalit leader Dr Krishnaswamy, PT has considerable presence in the southern districts. Krishnaswamy has accused Moopanar of lacking political decency. It's a case of Hobson's choice for us, laments a tmc leader. If we retain the PT in our fold, our cadres will feel let down. If we exclude the PT, then all the meticulous work of evolving a third front that can pose an effective challenge to the two Dravidian parties would come to naught.

As things stand, the '99 election is a beginning of a three-way fragmentation of voters. The stratification, though, appears to be party-based only on the surface; it is caste-based in reality. The aiadmk is depending heavily on the dominant Thevar community in the southern districts. South of Dindugal, Thevars are united in backing the aiadmk. They feel that the dmk does not represent their caste interest. With Jayalalitha's close aide Sasikala hailing from the Thevar community, all the legal action taken against Jayalalitha and Sasikala is seen as a victimisation of the community by the ruling dmk. In order to further strengthen her support base among the Thevars, Jayalalitha has not only fielded Sasikala's nephew T.T.V. Dinakaran as a candidate from the Periyakulam seat but has also roped in the former state election commissioner K. Malaiswamy as the candidate from Ramanathapuram. Malaiswamy was president of the Thevar Peravai, the umbrella structure of various Thevar organisations in the state. The dmk is trying to blunt the edge by the fielding Thevars too in this belt. It also hopes that the tacit support the bjp has from this community would help.

On the other hand, the dmk is also playing the caste card in northern Tamil Nadu. In the seven districts,Cuddalore, Vilupuram, Kancheepuram, Thiruvannamalai, Thiruvellore, Salem and Krishnagiri,the party is relying on the support of the dominant Vanniyar community. The dmk's more than generous offer of nine seats to the Vanniyar front within the nda consisting of the pmk and the trc is in perfect sync with the strategy of wooing the Vanniyar votes.

The tmc thought that the best bet is to rope in the Dalits, who,unlike the Thevars and the Vanniyars,are spread evenly across the state. In early August, Moopanar announced that the tmc would align with the PT, the Dalit Panthers, the Republican Party of India, the bsp and the Human Rights Front led by Illayaperumal. There are three sub-sects within the Dalits in Tamil Nadu. While the Devandra Kula Vellalars (also known as Pallars) are in the south and are with the PT, northern Tamil Nadu is hugely populated by the Parayars, who back the Dalit Panthers. However, the third segment,the Arunthatiyars (cobbler community) from the western part of the state,are still with the aiadmk. They played a crucial role in returning the aiadmk candidates in five constituencies: Gobichettipalayam, Pollachi, Dindugal, Palani and Rasipuram.

But the caste-based mobilisation is not confined to the three major parties alone. The mdmk, led by Vaiko, never hesitated to flaunt its Naidu connections. One of the primary reason for Vaiko to contest from the Sivakasi area is the strong presence of the Naidus there. The other significant aspect is that the dmk might lose the support of the Muslims, who have been its most dependable support base for nearly four decades. However, the Muslim votes will not en masse transfer to aiadmk but will be split between the aiadmk front and the tmc front as one faction of the Muslim League is with the aiadmk and the other with the tmc. And many Christian organisations have already expressed their solidarity with the aiadmk-Congress front. After what happened in Orissa and Gujarat, if we support a front in which the bjp is a part, then Jesus will not forgive us, says a senior Bishop. And god alone knows what the final outcome will be.