JUST SPAMMING|Time When Political Desperados Seek an Identity

Political desperados come in different forms. But this is the time – the season of political twilight that comes ahead of a new dispensation taking charge and as the sun sets on the older regime – when they seek some recognition or opportunity to remain in relevance for some more time. Political desperados also come in different shapes. Some are like the former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam whose desperation arises from the outright rejection by his own party leaders. Panneerselvam, endearingly called as OPS, has been associated only with the AIADMK in his lifetime. Unlike many other colleagues of his, he is not a party hopper. While fate catapulted the first time MLA into the Chief Minister’s throne, his wrong moves did him in.

While occupying the throne, too, he ensured that he did not ruffle any feathers and was fully aware that his role was to just keep the seat warm for the actual claimant who had to take a break in view of a conviction by a court. So when his boss, J Jayalalithaa, cleared all the legal hurdles and came with full gusto to occupy it, he humbly moved aside. When his time to do the same thing came again, he played truant. He was given the opportunity to sit there because Jayalalithaa had taken ill and continued sitting there after her passing. But when the party chose V K Sasikala, the close confidante of Jayalalithaa, to the post of Chief Minister, OPS was angry and staged what was termed as a ‘dharma yutham,’ whatever it meant.

Rest is history. First he was expelled from the party. If he had not gone for the ‘dharma yutham’ he would have continued as Chief Minister without a hitch because, the Supreme Court stopped Sasikala from becoming the Chief Minister at the nick of time by delivering the verdict on an old case and packing her off to jail. So, Sasikala chose Edappadi K Palaniswami, endearingly called a EPS, to the throne that she could not occupy due to the legal hurdle. Much water flowed under the bridge and OPS was back again in the AIADMK as second in command but he resented that position and aspired for the number one slot that he believed was his.

So he went on a senseless rampage of the AIADMK headquarters, earning the wrath of party leaders who expelled him from the party. Since then he has not been able to return to the AIADMK despite varied attempts, making him a desperado in the run up to polls. The BJP, whose ideologue was behind OPS waging that Dharma Yuddam, has now abandoned him and has not given him a place in the NDA, forcing him to look up to the rival DMK for succor. He had earlier met DMK president and chief minister M K Stalin ‘accidentally’ during his morning walk and then followed it with a tete-e-tete at home but could not become part of the alliance.

Now that the drum beats of the elections are being heard, he is reaching out to the DMK again. MLA Ayyappan, who is among those still in the league of OPS, delivered a heart-rending speech in the Assembly on the last day of the final session, eulogizing the DMK government and expressing confidence on the ruling party returning to power, triggering meaningful smirks in the faces of those in the treasury benches. OPS also met Stalin in his chamber, proving that he has become a full-fledged political desperado, seeking rehabilitation.

Similarly leaders of the Congress party in the State who were girdling up their loins to break free from the shackles of the DMK by putting out social media messages have stopped the tirade and are waiting, as they have said, for the DMK to set up the a committee that would discuss and finalise the seat sharing for the Assembly elections. They seem to have dropped their earlier demand, which was raging in social media for about a month, for power sharing. There were even independent political observers coming on social media to legitimize the demand by Congress leaders, who are suspected to have launched the rebellion with the connivance of the party high command.

Whatever happened, the cacophony has died down with even AICC leaders like Praveen Chakravarthy keeping quiet. This also seems to be another form of political desperation. Realizing that the DMK could not be blackmailed to agree for power sharing – it started with some Congress leaders believing that the DMK desperately wanted its support to win elections – they changed the tactic. Their hope of having the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) as an alternative to the DMK, too, somehow, somewhere, evaporated, impelling them to come to terms with the fact that they needed the DMK for its political survival, not just in the State but also at the national level.

Another political desperado on whom the light shone recently was the general secretary of the DMDK, Premalatha Vijayakanth, who breezed into Anna Arivalayam to form her party’s latest alliance with the DMK. Interestingly, the DMDK, founded in 2005 by late actor Vijayakanth, would have never thought about a tie-up with DMK earlier. As insiders claim, Vijayakanth never pardoned the DMK for taking over a portion of the land on which he had constructed a marriage hall in Koyambedu. But, past is past, it’s safe to look ahead into the future.