Chennai: The VCK has raised a very uncomfortable question that could derail the four-party PWA (People’s Welfare Alliance), which hopes to put an end to the political duopoly in the state.
Senior VCK leaders, including its general secretary D. Ravikumar and propaganda secretary S.S. Balaji, are mounting pressure on their alliance partners to declare Thol Tirumavalavan as the front’s chief ministerial candidate.
And they have chosen social networking sites to make their voices heard.
“Why do people who do not hesitate to propose Dalits for archakas, do not come forward to say that a Dalit can become chief minister,” Ravikumar posted on his official Facebook page on Sunday.
As if that were not enough, Balaji justified the demand on his FB page posting; “It is imperative for Vaiko and Left leaders to declare Thiruma as CM candidate to demonstrate that they believe in efficiency and not caste in deciding leadership.”
The VCK leader’s demands are not to be seen as excessively ambitious as the Dalit party has maximum vote share and cadre base among the four PWA constituents.
The just concluded PWA Madurai conclave will bear testimony to the theory considering that around 70% of the cadre turn out (for the meet) was due to the VCK. However, it is feared the alliance partners prefer to keep their party at the bottom of the pecking order.
The discomfort in projecting Tirumavalavan was obvious when the PWA chose to stick posters without any party leader only to avoid carrying the picture of the Dalit leader in the Gounder and Naidu dominant Erode and Coimbatore districts.
VCK sources were not averse to stating their opinion that their stake would increase and they would emerge as a strong Dalit force even if they go it alone.
Concurring with VCK views, Dravidian scholar and political analyst V.M. Subagunarajan told Deccan Chronicle, “VCK’s demand is legitimate. They can easily get 5,000 to 10,000 votes per constituency, whereas the two left parties and MDMK will struggle to poll 1,500 per constituency.”
“After Seeman’s emergence, Vaiko’s lost his political currency even among the Eelam sympathisers. Now, he is struggling to contain the exodus from his party. How will Vaiko manage to lead the alliance? Thiruma is the better and wiser choice,” a political commentator requesting anonymity said.
“They might argue that it is not necessary to declare a CM candidate ahead of polls in TN. But, if they continue to ignore the VCK or the CM candidate question, the PWA will only end up falling apart ahead of the elections.”
