New Delhi, December 28
With Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalitha cosying up to the BJP, her rival M. Karunanidhi and DMK’s parting of ways with the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre appears imminent.
A final decision in this regard is expected to be taken in the middle of January when DMK’s executive is scheduled to meet in Chennai.
Serious strains have developed in the BJP-DMK relationship. Mr Karunanidhi has expressed his displeasure in no uncertain terms about the BJP leadership trying to woo Ms Jayalalitha despite the AIADMK pulling the rug from under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s feet in 1999.
Several DMK Members of Parliament have been expressing their resentment over the new linkages developing between the BJP and the AIADMK and the possibility of their party bidding adieu to the NDA coglomeration.
Clearly, Union Industry and Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran’s return from the USA is awaited where he has gone for a kidney transplant. He is expected back in the first week of the New Year. Mr Maran’s absence from the country is believed to have compelled the DMK from taking a decision snapping links with the NDA.
The DMK executive is to meet in the second half of January to finalise its strategy on fielding a candidate for the Sathankulam Assembly byelection. The election has been necessitated because of the death of sitting MLA Mani Nadar who belonged to the erstwhile Tamil Maanila Congress which has since merged with the Congress.
Observers of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu believe that Ms Jayalalitha’s presence at the swearing-in ceremony of Mr Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat after the BJP’s runaway win in the Assembly elections in the state and the enactment of the Conversion Act in the southern state might have an adverse impact on the Sathankulam voters who are predominantly from the minority community.
The DMK, the AIADMK, the
Congress and the BJP have announced that they will contest the Sathankulam byelection. That rules out any truck between the DMK and the BJP. On its part the DMK has stressed that it will contest the byelection on its own strength. The Sathankulam constituency has been the Congress bastion since 1967 with the Nadar community enjoying dominance and comprising 30 per cent Christians. If the BJP goes it alone in Sathankulam, it might have an adverse impact on the AIADMK.
In the prevailing scenario, analysts feel that it might be an opportune moment for the DMK to break free from the NDA and get closer to the Congress headed by Ms Sonia Gandhi’s.
The byelection is expected in February next year along with the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and some others.
