JUST SPAMMING | Roping In Sengottaiyan To Fight Graft, Vijay Style

Politics in Tamil Nadu throws up heroes depending on the season. The latest such hero to hog the limelight is K A Sengottaiyan, veteran AIADMK leader who cut his teeth in politics during the MGR era. The last time he was under media limelight was when his party MLAs were having a jamboree at a resort in a place called Koovathur to sort out some matters of great import to the party and the State at that point of time in February, 2017. Defending the en masse stay of MLAs in the Golden Bay Resort in East Coast Road, he was meeting journalists who were swarming outside the gates when he tried to reply to a question shot at him by an English television reporter.

Since it was a moment sizzling with humour – the entire sojourn of nearly 100 MLAs near Mahabalipuram was being mocked at – Sengottaiyan fumbling with English words also became troll material, adding to the lighthearted atmosphere. But that retreat near the Bay of Bengal could have ended with Sengottiyan emerging from the resort as Chief Minister. After all, he is considered the senior most top honcho in the party. Fate, however, had other designs and Edappadi K Palaiswami walked out of the gates to reach the Secretariat for his swearing in as Chief Minister. The same Fate took Sengottaiyam to Panniyur, also on the East Coast Road last week, for his induction into a top post in the fledgling Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK).

In a political environment where party hopping is not frowned upon, Sengottaiyan was known for his loyalty to the AIADMK till he was axed very recently. But anyway, ahead of his expulsion, he was indeed running amok, or was impelled to go haywire, confusing himself and the people. There were clear indications of the BJP using him to break the AIADMK and he, too, was apparently playing along. He would declare that he was going to Haridwar and land at the Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s residence in New Delhi. That was just one of the indications that the veteran leader was lost in the political jungle but was not happy being at home.

Whatever, he finally came to roost in the TVK and was handed over gargantuan responsibilities by the party leadership that was actually lost in the political jungle. So the over half a century experience in politics of Sengottaiyan could give the much required direction and focus to the fledgling party, everyone is saying. Sengottaiyan, too, has nothing to feel remorseful about because he was not poached but TVK. His parent party chucked him out and he just walked into the door that was kept open. Nothing more could be said about it.

But what is actually intriguing is the TVK rolling out a red carpet to a politician like Sengottaiyan. The day before he actually joined the party formally, he was having a discussion with the top honchos of the TVK for over two hours at a posh apartment of Vijay in Foreshore Estate in Chennai. Probably deliberating on the terms and conditions for joining the party. But how did Vijay, who has been talking regularly about eliminating corruption and accusing the ruling party of such graft, agree to handover such onerous responsibilities to the dyed-in-the wool politician who had been a part of the Jayalalithaa regime all through.

Or, to put it otherwise, how will Vijay, now projecting himself as a possible epitome of clean administration, make use of a seasoned politician, who had faced corruption charges. It’s a different matter that he was never convicted by the courts on those cases but does Vijay believe that he was absolutely clean. Even if he was clean, was he not at Koovathur, along with the other MLAs, with the lofty purpose of electing V K Sasikala as the Chief Minister in 2017. Sasikala was the second accused after J Jayalalithaa in the corruption case that sent her to prison for four years, thus confirming that she was indeed a corrupt person, legally.

So the question is what kind of clean politics that Vijay is offering to the people of Tamil Nadu. His persistent anger against the present government, particularly the Chief Minister M K Stalin whom he does not mind naming in his speeches, is perfectly fine and progressive. We need politicians who are young and with fresh ideas to change the system, to usher in a new form of government and definitely eliminate corruption, which has become a bane of democracy and the society. Graft that has given deep roots in the society and the body politic of State, and of course the country, in all forms should be done away with completely.

But is Vijay going to do it with the help of people like Sengottaiyan at the helm of affairs in his party? Luckily, the hordes of youth who swear by Vijay are not going to raise this question with him since they themselves are not aware of the dynamics of political corruption and how graft at high places take place. But should society not ask Vijay in what way his TVK was different from the rest of the political parties that have been ruling this country and State so long if he spots political talent and administrative acumen in a leader like Sengottaiyan, whom the BJP was also trying to make use of.