DC Edit | Inroads Into TN, Kerala May Be Hard For NDA
It is understandable that Mr Modi attacked the DMK on many of its fault lines like domination of party by one family, the issue of corruption that is a longstanding one in the nearly 60-year history of a Dravidian duopoly in Tamil Nadu and the tendency lately of drugs being freely available in the state drawing students and the youth into its seductive embrace
Impressive as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s southern push for the BJP-led NDA was in the grand splash made in a public meeting near Chennai, the superstar poll campaigner’s biggest challenge will lie in creating inroads for the ruling party in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
History is loaded against any party that does not belong to the Dravidian stream in Tamil Nadu while the Kerala political scene has shown a similar preference for the Left led by the CPM or the Congress in a well-established alternating pattern until Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF defied it in 2021.
In keeping with the tradition of national parties riding into Tamil Nadu clutching the coattails of either of the Dravidian majors, the BJP-NDA has thrown in its lot with the AIADMK that is in Opposition to the ruling DMK. Though the association may not have helped the AIADMK in the 2021 Assembly polls, the consolidation of forces opposing the DMK is a plus point in the thrust this time around after they had gone their separate ways for the Lok Sabha polls of 2024.
It is understandable that Mr Modi attacked the DMK on many of its fault lines like domination of party by one family, the issue of corruption that is a longstanding one in the nearly 60-year history of a Dravidian duopoly in Tamil Nadu and the tendency lately of drugs being freely available in the state drawing students and the youth into its seductive embrace.
The crux of the issue, Opposition unity, has proved elusive yet again as Vijay, the new entrant into Tamil Nadu politics who has entered the fray with a bang, has stuck it out in his determination to go it alone with his TVK in the hope that the future is his given his relative youth and his power to draw the youth and the women seeking a change from tired politics.
He has resisted pressures brought on him by delaying his much-awaited final movie and protracted questioning by the CBI on the Karur stampede event. Enjoying the obvious advantage in any three-way or four-way contest with Seeman’s party being one of the players, albeit a fringe one, the DMK is hoping to emulate Jayalalithaa who got won a second straight term in 2016 before the reins came to Edappadi Palaniswami after her death. The splitting of votes beyond two streams will again favour M.K. Stalin’s DMK.
Against a litany of charges, including that of interfering in spiritual matters as in the Thiruparakundram temple deepam issue and insulting Tamil culture, the DMK has retorted using standard arguments along the lines of the Centre targeting non-BJP governments in the matter of sharing funds for education and development of Tamil and work beginning on the pending AIIMS project and dubbing the promised double engine government of being a jalopy that cannot run in Tamil Nadu. Beating the language drum on imposition of Hindi also comes in handy.
The BJP-NDA will be swimming against the tide in Kerala too where its vote share has shrunk from around 20 to 14 per cent as seen in the recent local bodies poll though there was one breakthrough win in Thiruvananthapuram. Sustaining momentum in a three-way contest in Kerala will be as challenging as assisting AIADMK in getting the anti-incumbency votes in Tamil Nadu. Two of three remaining bastions (Telangana being the other) against the BJP, generally viewed in most parts of southern India as a north Indian party that aims for unitary rule in diverse India, appear to be impregnable.
