Monday, Mar 03, 2003
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Tamil Nadu
By R.K.Radhakrishnan
The DMK president, M.Karunanidhi, feels that a formal alliance with political parties could wait till the Lok Sabha elections, scheduled to take place next year. But there could be cooperation on other fronts and issues. Not surprisingly, the DMK leadership has decided to build issue-based struggle platforms with the support of other Opposition parties. There is no dearth of issues. The coming budget session, drought conditions, an across-the-board increase in prices of commodities and services, jailing of DMK MLAs and incarceration of the MDMK general secretary, Vaiko, under provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, are some of them. The DMK is hoping to use the cohesion achieved among parties in Sattankulam to raise the issues and put the Government on the defensive. One issue where the DMK and other Opposition parties are in agreement is the arrest of Mr. Vaiko, an issue that has been "forgotten" by the dominant partner of the National Democratic Alliance, the BJP. This issue, to be taken up immediately, would pose no problems to the DMK while dealing with the BJP and the Congress at the same time. After all, leaders of all Opposition parties, including the Congress, the Left and the BJP, were part of the one crore people, who signed the memorandum seeking Mr. Vaiko's release. Mr.Karunanidhi said he had been talking to leaders on the issue. He would talk to a few more leaders, including those from the BJP, before arriving at a decision on the course of action to be adopted. Mr.Karunanidhi explained the invitation to the BJP, pointing out that its leaders also signed the signature campaign. For the BJP, there was no embarrassment as the proposed agitation or plan of action would be against the State Government, and not against the Union Government. The DMK move could not have come at a better time for the BJP. The parties that supported the AIADMK candidate in the byelection were shown in poor light with the ruling party claiming that the victory was its own and made no mention of any support from any quarter so far. This has left the pro-AIADMK elements in the BJP uncomfortable.
Dig at BJP
Mr.Karunanidhi took pot-shots at the BJP over this today. He said some parties, which had extended support to the AIADMK ``uninvited'', were now regretting it. Despite the victory margin, it looks like the DMK did not lose much by practicing defensive politics in Sattankulam. It had asked people not to vote the AIADMK, but stopped short of saying whom the people should vote for. For the Congress too, one saving grace has been that the support from the main Opposition party in the State, the DMK, was not open. In fact, the DMK's decision to ask the people not to vote the AIADMK was based on its `defensive politics', because a bad defeat would mean loss of moral authority to carry out fresh campaigns against the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa.
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