Tamil Nadu
- Opinion polls give the AIADMK alliance the edge
- DMK has a double headache: anti-incumbency and 2-G scam
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As election day (April 13) nears, the AIADMK’s Jayalalitha is getting feistier by the day, with defiant attacks on DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and his family. She called the latter “one of the richest in Asia”, prompting the Tamil Nadu CM to ask the Election Commission to rein her in. Karunanidhi himself has sounded downbeat (“We will be with the people even if voted out”) and desperate (“the EC has imposed an undeclared Emergency”). Elder son M.K. Azhagiri being restrained by officials of the commission and pre-election surveys giving Jayalalitha an edge haven’t helped matters. (An opinion poll by the People’s Studies department of Loyola College, Chennai, revealed that 48.6 per cent of those polled would vote for the AIADMK alliance and 41.7 per cent for the DMK combine.)
With an active EC, it has also become more difficult to buy votes. “Money is not moving,” says a satisfied M.G. Devasahayam of the Forum for Electoral Integrity, a citizens’ collective which has backed the commission’s efforts to stop voter ‘buying’. Usual government practices like transfers of officials etc have not worked while cash seizures have till date yielded nearly Rs 34 crore. The EC directive to banks not to allow withdrawals of over a lakh to those who cannot give adequate reasons has also tightened the screws. Azhagiri (who has complained about being hampered by the EC) is now being shown up, given his earlier claim that he was prepared to shell out Rs 8,000 for a vote.
In fact, the crux of Jayalalitha’s campaign has been her attacks on Azhagiri. In Madurai, she criticised him for protesting the withdrawal of most of his security. “Why does a rowdy man need police protection?” she asked. Karunanidhi too has come in for widespread criticism for attacking the EC. Says ex-IAS officer C. Umashankar, “It’s a good ploy to divert attention, attacking a neutral organisation. It’s a time-tested strategy...Karunanidhi is doing it because he has no other means of taking on the opposition.”
For all its troubles, though, the DMK has the more cohesive alliance, the only straggler being the Congress (in 63 seats), which seems in free fall with all the controversies surrounding candidate selection. TNCC president K.V. Thangkabalu himself is in trouble with his backdoor entry as Mylapore candidate after first getting the ticket for his wife. As A.R. Venkatachalapathy, professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, puts it, “Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s helicopter campaign is not going to make a difference here.”
Coming to the AIADMK, there’s cause for worry as none of its partners, particularly the Left, seem like Amma’s natural allies. She may have pulled off a coup getting Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) into her stable but few are willing to bet on the alliance going the distance considering the fragile egos of the two main characters.
Karunanidhi has scoffed at the “engineered” opinion polls giving the thumbs up to the AIADMK as a “bourgeois” conspiracy. Conventionally, TN voters have never voted in anybody; they have always voted out somebody. The irony is that the biggest pro-Tamil player of them all, Vaiko, has reportedly signalled to his cadre that they defeat the AIADMK after Jayalalitha offered him crumbs (which led to his boycotting the polls). In 2001, Vaiko’s MDMK contested alone and got a 4.7 per cent voteshare. Jayalalitha is hoping the dmdk’s voteshare (8.33 per cent in 2006 and 10.45 per cent in the 2009 LS elections) will offset this loss.
In the end analysis, both the major alliances have some factors in common—they were unprepared for the polls, picked the wrong candidates, even selected wrong constituencies during seat negotiations with allies. The DMK’s disadvantage is double; they also have anti-incumbency and the 2G scam to deal with.
