JUST SPAMMING | What We Learnt In The Run Up To The Hustings

A certain calm has now descended the political arena after a series of diverse storms shook up the major tents in the electoral circus with leaders displaying intriguing self-assessments, pomposity, egotistical posturing and plain pride. Now that the parties and leaders are gearing up for the elections, looking forward to triumphs and debacles, let’s look back at the drama that unfolded for about two months in the run up to the hustings and try to figure out the lessons they taught us on modern politics. One important takeaway was the understanding that politics is now shorn of principles and has nothing to do with people’s welfare.

Reduced to a number game, politics is played to win seats in the State Assembly and for nothing else - if pelf is there, it swirls around only those playing the game, away from the public eye. So the game is reduced to fighting elections first and every top political party plays the game according to its convenience and aspirations, both of which differ from player to player. For example, but for the two Dravidian majors, the newbie Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) and the ever fighting Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) no other party has openly professed an aspiration to capture power but want seats in the Assembly.

That does not mean that those parties do not want to rule Tamil Nadu. Almost all of the parties have a dream to storm Fort St George – someday. Many keep the dream to themselves and wait for an opportunity to arrive, while others devise scheming methods to barge in after the votes are counted and the names of winning candidates declared. The BJP that has the record of pushing its way to the driver’s seat through different methods in different States obviously is not looking at a straight decisive win for it is contesting only in 27 of the 234 seats. So whatever way it goes, it will have to take other parties into its fold to form the government. But then there are so many ways in which it could be done as it had been done in the past.

Whatever method it might choose in future, the BJP had shown genuine interest in the State elections and its top honchos, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had paid repeated visits to the State to declare that an NDA government would be in place after the elections. They struck an alliance with the AIADMK even after it had walked out of the NDA in the past and even summoned its head honcho Edappadi K Palaniswami to New Delhi to hold one-on-one discussions with Amit Shah, impelling the watchful parties in the opposite camp to point out that the elections would see a fight between Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

It was Vijay who objected to that claim of the State elections becoming a Tamil Nadu vs New Delhi match, perhaps to drive home the point that his fledgling party had already arrived on the scene and that the fight for supremacy in the political field was between him and the ruling DMK. Palaniswami himself dispelled the myth that Delhi’s will prevailed with the AIADMK by cutting out BJP’s role to a large extent in the seat-sharing exercise and also bringing the talks to his party headquarters from Amit Shah’s house. Only thing that the BJP leaders did not acknowledge was that the AIADMK spearheaded the alliance and if it wins, Palaniswami will be the Chief Minister.

Who would be chief minister is not at all a question in the rest of the camps. If the TVK romps home it will be Vijay and if NTK wins most of the seats, it will be Seeman. In the alliance led by the DMK, known as the Secular Progressive Alliance DMK president M K Stalin is the undisputed chief. In fact Stalin ensured that none of the allies even sought a share in power, though it was a big question that loomed over the State for a long time, delaying the reaffirmation of the nearly decade long alliance itself. It was that demand of the Congress for a substantial number of seats and a share in power that taught us lessons in modern politics. Without any worthy contribution to capture the imagination of the people in the State, the Congress came up with a claim that it had grown significantly and demanded more seats and even share in power.

Apart from the Congress, other allies, too, demanded more seats. To join the alliance, the DMDK wanted a Rajya Sabha nomination and even got it though that party’s popularity has not been tested through the ballot box. But since winning is the buzzword, the DMK did not want to miss it out when the BJP was out on a rollercoaster ride roping in a large number of hungry leaders of small parties, looking for a taste of victory in one or a few seats. Intimidated by the enrolment spree of the BJP, the DMK wanted more allies fearing that the vote share of the present constituents might not add to a victory tally and acceded seats to parties that had proved their worth only in losing their deposits. Amidst all these, no one talked about policies, principles and ideology but have lined up on their mark to get set and Go.