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BJP becomes Tamil Nadu's talking point

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Jayalalitha backs it, and takes up political fights on its behalf. Even pan-Tamil parties like the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Pattali Makkal Katchi, whose congenital creed it was to condemn anything to do with it, defend it, and even advise it. And after a slow start, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam keeps criticising it and tags it along for any criticism against the AIADMK as well. And the Tamil Maanila Congress continues to condemn it.

From a party that polled only 2.5 per cent of the votes and winning a lone assembly seat, and recording a respectable second place in a Lok Sabha constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party has suddenly become the cynosure of all eyes in Tamil Nadu, where pan-Tamil Dravidian political culture has ruled the roost for over 30 years. And from being Jayalaltiha-centric, the polity has suddenly become BJP-centric, and even attacks on the AIADMK supremo are barbed with references to its national ally.

"Doesn't the BJP's prime ministerial candidate A B Vajpayee know that Jayalalitha has been found guilty in a corruption-related case by the Madras high court, and has been ordered to compensate the loss to the state? How can he then say that corruption charges against her have not been proved before a court of law thus far, and the BJP ally with her?" Karunanidhi retorted from a dais designed like the Parliament House, when Prime Minister I K Gujral launched the United Front's state-level election campaign at Madras last week.

Elsewhere on other occasions, too, Karunanidhi has been referring to the BJP more frequently than he used to in the interregnum. Not stopping with attacking the national party for its alliance with the AIADMK, which he dubs as corrupt-as-ever, Karunanidhi and other DMK speakers have also been referring to the 'Hindutva' forces that the BJP represents.

Against this, and against the more stringent criticism of the BJP by the TMC leadership, you now have Jayalalitha defending the party, and commending its prime ministerial nominee and 'stability card' to the state voters. She has also criticised a 'foreigner' Sonia Gandhi wanting to become the Congress prime minister of India, and has advised the BJP to defer controversial issues like Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashmir for another 20 years.

If state Congress president K V Thankgabalu was prompt to criticise Jayalalitha for arguing the BJP's case on the prime ministership, and even on a Presidential form of government, as detailed in the AIADMK manifesto, the TMC did not lose much time to dub her as the 'mouthpiece of the BJP'. TMC general secretary Peter Alphonse also wanted to know whether Jayalalitha would approve of the BJP reviving Ayodyha after 20 years.

Though the AIADMK's proximity to the BJP on the Ayodhya issue had been known even before the demolition, what has come as a surprise is the defence of the party by both the MDMK and the PMK. MDMK general secretary V Gopalswamy has since certified that the "BJP alone can provide a stable government."

Both, though, have bits and pieces of advice and suggestions for what they see as the prospective ruling party at the Centre, on such issues as backward classes' reservations, and the Cauvery waters row. Yet, in all these, the BJP is central to the issue. Incidentally, both the MDMK and the PMK had condemned the 'Ayodhya demolition' but as BJP's allies now, "minorities have nothing to fear".

"It would have been a natural process, what with the BJP capturing the centrestage of national politics, and the state voters being politically knowledgeable," says a DMK ideologue. But he too concedes that the BJP aligning with the AIADMK has suddenly given it a central place in state politics as well.

"It's is a 'negative image' that the BJP should have avoided. Every time we refer to the BJP, it's only to question how a party claiming to have high moral standards and probity in public life, could associate itself with a corrupt and lawless party like the AIADMK."

A TMC theoretician also concedes that much. "The AIADMK alliance has made the BJP a talking point in the state," he says. "But that ends there." According to him, the BJP doesn't have the organisation or the delivery mechanism to capitalise on whatever 'middle class sympathy' it might have won in recent months. "And whatever publicity it has got now, thanks to its association with the AIADMK, is only negative publicity, and will only work against the BJP when it would matter the most."

For the present, however, the party's critics concede that the BJP is in the news, and will improve its election performance, percentage-wise. But they do not share the BJP's own optimism that it will win at least a couple of seats to the Lok Sabha in the company of its allies.

"That will require greater polarisation of votes on a communal basis," says the TMC leader. "That's possible only if the BJP can ensure a sharp communal divide. But then, that will only add to the negative publicity it already has."

Not necessarily, if the BJP leadership in the state is to be believed. As a Hindutva leader points out, be it at Nagercoil, or now in Coimbatore, the 'communal polarisation' that has given the BJP a greater chance of winning the seats, owed it to violence initiated by the 'other side'. At Nagercoil, it began with the 'Mandaicaudu incident' of 1982, and in Coimbatore, it came up as late as November.

"The TMC," according to this leader, "is afraid that we will cut deeply into the massive ranks of non-committed voters in the state, who would have otherwise gone in its favour. By aligning itself with the DMK for a little too long, the TMC has missed out that opportunity, and we are here to stay, with an increased poll percentage and a higher number of seats won with every election from now."

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