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DMK steels itself for the worst

Jayalalitha ruled over the tea party organised by Subramanian Swamy, but the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was not worried. Though DMK leader M Karunanidhi considers the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader his worst enemy, he wasn't worried. Because the left parties and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha stayed away from that tea party.

But now the DMK is looking at the possibility of an anti-BJP government at the Centre with Jayalalitha playing a prominent role in it. Karunanidhi even received state BJP general secretary L Ganesan this morning, though both sides claimed there was "nothing political" about the meeting.

But the meeting had made things easier for the party, said a DMK source. "But we are still watching the evolving situation, and would not like to go public until the AIADMK actually joins the Congress and the left," says a senior party leader.

The DMK leadership is now wondering about the high moral ground that political parties, particularly the left, had taken on the issue of dismissals of state governments.

That, DMK sources say, is the real issue involved in the AIADMK's current row with the BJP. Jayalalitha, they say, want the DMK government dismissed to resolve the problem regarding the corruption cases against her and her colleagues. And the government is not willing to oblige her.

Though the DMK has not taken any formal decision about backing the Vajpayee government, either by voting with it or staying away, they say it might back the government if Jayalalitha's real agenda is exposed, as promised by BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu.

"We came to power on a public mandate for prosecuting those guilty of corruption under the Jayalalitha dispensation, and anyone who aids that, actively or passively, should have our vote," he said.

The DMK leader also pooh-poohed the assertion by the left that his party would back a Congress government supported by the AIADMK.

"Their political logic is not based on ideology as they would like us believe, but on their immediate political concerns in states like West Bengal, where the BJP is trying to expand its base. There is also the larger question of the left's survival in the long run, given the advancing age of its leadership at all levels, and the growing irrelevance of the communist ideology.

"They seem to feel that they will have a future only if they can grab the levers of power at the national level, even if remotely. Our own strategic concerns too have been influenced by our own political demands and experience."

If the left seems to making a decision easier for the six-member DMK in the Lok Sabha, the Congress is making a decision hard for the breakaway Tamil Maanila Congress, which is still rather close to the mother party. Earlier, after much thought, the TMC had decided to back a Congress-led government from outside, even if such a government includes the AIADMK. But that was in December, when the Gujarat-Orissa communal clashes were the issue, and the BJP's 'Hindutva forces' were the issue.

"It's not that easy this time," concedes a leader. "When Jayalalitha is the issue, what greater political risk can we take than backing the AIADMK, directly or indirectly?" As he concedes again, the "BJP has pushed the Congress and the left into the hands of the AIADMK." He says the party will find it difficult to retract from it's stand in 1996, when the party was formed?"

In a way, the TMC leader says, the Congress high command seems set on "committing the same blunder the Narasimha Rao leadership did in 1996. Jayalalitha has not changed, the TMC cadre mood has not changed, even the Tamil Nadu voters seem to hold the same view they did in 1996 about the AIADMK.

"That being the case, it's going to be very difficult for our party to take a pro-AIADMK stand in Parliament and convince the cadres about it."

He referred to TMC founder G K Moopanar's speeches at the TMC's general council meeting at a time the AIADMK was holding a historic session elsewhere in the city. In his inaugural address, Moopanar promised he wouldn't desert the cadres or go against their wishes.

In his valedictory speech in the evening, when the AIADMK's decisions were known, his tone was sharper. " I only hope that the Congress does not repeat its blunder of 1996," he said, hinting at a total snapping of ties with the mother party over the issue of the AIADMK.

Interestingly, three former state Congress chiefs, including a Sonia loyalist, 'Kumari' Anandan, attacked Tindivanam K Ramamurthy, the anti-Moopanar state party chief.

They made a public demand for his replacement and said the message had been conveyed the party high command. While Ramamurthy is said to be getting close to Poes Garden -- he reportedly greeted Jayalalitha on phone after she withdrew her ministers from the Vajpayee government -- the other three are known to be backers of Moopanar though he started a new party.

"The message is clear," says the TMC leader. "Even state Congress leaders who had backed the Narasimha Rao leadership's decision to align with the AIADMK in 1996 seem to have realised their blunder. "Now they are convincing the high command not to repeat a blunder."

He said the TMC might not consider the Congress's stand if the matter was about the AIADMK. But he said the party could still back a government led by Congress even if not one backed by it.

"In that case, we may have to boycott a confidence vote, and stay out of a Congress government at the Centre that will have the AIADMK in it," he says.

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