The DMK president Stalin has made clear which direction his party will be going towards 2019. The status quo with old Congress partners was always on the cards although doubts had surfaced thanks to some overtures from the BJP when his father M. Karunaidhi was ailing, including in a visit by the Prime Minister Modi. The DMK has chosen to stick to its guns and allies even if Karunanidhi himself had proved that politics is the art of the possible in his aligning with Vajpayee and the NDA upto 2004.
There are no permanent enemies and friends in politics. However, the manner in which Stalin put down the saffron crowd and went for the jugular in naming Narendra Modi as the antagonist in his acceptance speech would have us believe that the door has been shut permanently. While this may not be so always in the long run, the DMK position has been settled so far as the 2019 polls go. It could be different if the results sill favour the NDA more and the BJP needs allies to make up the numbers for the next government.
Judging from the severity of the attack on the Modi government, it would appear Stalin has not left the door open for all options. His pronouncements may, however, have been based on 2019 projections and the anti-incumbency factor that could weigh heavily against the BJP nationally. The DMK may have had its share of problems with UPA and even pulled out its ministers at the height of the 2G scam when DMK protagonists were jailed. But they have proved reliable friends in rough weather too after all of them got unseated in 2014.
Stalin has been decisive in stating his party position and appears prepared to take what comes in 2019. Of course, his party has nothing to lose as it was routed seat-less in the last LS polls, beaten by the Jayalalithaa charisma which was at its height, and everything to gain in the current political scene post-Jaya's demise. If the closeness of the 2016 margins are a rough guide to what may happen, there is every reason for the original Dravidian major to feel confident about a change of fortunes.
The secular front, regardless of what the term means today, is the more natural spot for a party that used to swear by atheism, but one which is prepared to accept now that faith moves Tamil Nadu a great deal as the proliferation of roadside shrines in every city would indicate. With the passing of the patriarch who grew up in the Periyar movement, the one at the helm could soften his stance. In fact, it would be the pragmatic thing to do when it comes to addressing the whole populace in search of political power.
What else is it in India but a hunt for power? Is there a great difference in ideologies between the two major Dravidian parties? Of course, not. They are in it for wielding power and they have done it by offering the more attractive freebies than the other. All other talk loses value because both sides have been on either side of the spectrum. Curiously, in Tamil Nadu, the Communists, for all their didactic lecturing, have also been on both sides of the divide.
Why, even the most vocal opponent of the Jaya regimes of today has stood with folded hands without a chair to sit on at Jaya's public meetings when the Congress aligned with the AIADMK in the wake of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination on Tamil Nadu soil. All talk of principles has invariably vanished in this peculiar power grabbing game in which poll alliances have nothing to do but the picking of a combination to suit the public mood. Not that the voting public does not know this. But the public voice has been muted by freebies and how much of currency is forked out ahead of polls in what is now known as the Thirumangalam formula.
Having taken over the reins of his party decisively and put other contenders from the family firmly in their place, Stalin has taken on the onerous responsibility of reviving DMK electorally after having spent so many years in the wings in his own party. The patriarch's biggest mistake in 2016 may have been his failure to facilitate the change at the helm. Had Stalin been projected as the one taking on Jaya’s AIADMK rather than an ageing Karunanidhi, the results may have been different. But all that is like water flowing down the Cauvery. Its back to the future as it were.
