MORE trouble is brewing for former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaram. Four groups opposed to her in the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) have set in motion a process of consolidation of forces opposed to the jailed leader.
The groups—all led by Jayalali-tha's erstwhile cabinet colleagues—took out a silent procession to the 'samadhi' of AIADMK founder Mardhur Gopalamenon Ramachandran (MGR) on December 24, his ninth death anniversary. The sole objective of the MGR Mandrams led by R.M. Veerappan, the rebel AIADMK led by S.D. Somasundaram, the MGR ADMK led by S. Raghavanandam and the Federation of MGR Fan Clubs led by Alagu Thirunavukkarasu is to reestablish MGR's rule—a euphemism for capturing power without Jayalalitha.
The leaders of all four groups were expelled from the party in the last three years. They now feel that by uniting they can emerge as a viable alternative to the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). But they can't agree on who should lead the flock.
Raghavanandam, who has merged his MGR ADMK with the rebel AIADMK, says he is willing to play a role akin to that of former Kerala chief minister K. Karunakaran vis-a-vis the Congress, in bringing the disparate groups together. But the problem is that no one wants to play second fiddle to the 81-year-old leader.
Veerappan, whose dream of capturing power immediately after MGR's death was foiled by Jayalalitha, is against any hastily-conceived patch-up. Says he: "If the rebels capture the party and the two-leaves symbol, they will invite me to join them. Otherwise they have to approach me to lead them from the front."
But Somasundaram is confident that he will be able to cobble together more support before MGR's birth anniversary on January 17. "Apart from the leaders who were removed from the party by Jayalalitha, many middle-level leaders still within the party are now talking to us. I'm sure the party headquarters, the party flag and the symbol, all created by MGR and misused by Jayalalitha, will be with us on the next birthday of our beloved leader," he says.
The unified AIADMK would seek to set itself against both the DMK and the G.K. Moopanar-led Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) in an attempt to regain its past glory. But for now, the splinter groups are divided on who their immediate target should be: Jayalalitha or Karunanidhi.
"To blame Karunanidhi for all the problems besieging the AIADMK is a delusion and I don't want to be part of it," says Veerappan. "The era of bi-polar politics is over. We can no longer invoke the rivalry between MGR and Karunanidhi to get votes."
The AIADMK rebels think otherwise. Says a senior leader: "It's easy for Veerappan to say this. He and his team are not involved in any of the scandals and they don't fear any arrest. On the other hand, our senior leader Kannappan is already in jail and three more leaders may be arrested at any moment. How can we not talk about Karunanidhi's highhandedness in this situation?"
Admittedly, it makes more political sense for the splinter groups to attack both Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi simultaneously. But there's a catch. They have no clue how to justify the arrest of Jayalalitha while projecting the arrest of Kannappan as politically motivated.
Unless the anti-Jayalalitha group presents itself as a better alternative than the AIADMK under Jayalalitha, the cadres will not switch over. Says a senior leader of the official AIADMK: "How can we join Kannappan and Muthuswamy? This is like Congressmen leaving Narasimha Rao to join hands with Sukh Ram and Kalpnath Rai."
A unified party implies a collective leadership. AIADMK has never been known for multiple power centres. Its strength and weakness stems from the charisma of a single, all-powerful, thoroughly-deified leader. In its 25-year history, it has never witnessed any intra-party elections. Whoever the party supremo nominates, he or she becomes an office bearer. "The DMK is a cadre based party. We are a leader-based party. A discredited Jayalalitha can still get more votes than these non-entities," says the AIADMK leader, who is also nurturing ambitions of taking over the reins of the party from Jayalalitha.
Observers say there is space for two regional parties in the state as the DMK-TMC experience has demonstrated. "But the rejuvenation of the AIADMK—with or without Jayalalitha—is possible only if Moopanar commits the mistake of merging his party with the Congress," the AIADMK leader opines. But that is still in the realm of speculation.
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