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TMC planning to assemble a third front in Tamil Nadu

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Following Tamil Maanila Congress founder G K Moopanar's meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi, talk about the emergence of a Third Front is making the rounds in Tamil Nadu. With assembly elections due next May, the TMC appears to be initiating steps to come up with one.

"We are keeping our options open," a TMC leader said. "We may like to go with the Congress, but a decision will be based on our assessment of the emerging electoral scenario," he said. "We are awaiting a favourable sign from the Congress president, but will not necessarily be bound by the same," he added.

The idea was indeed put forward before state party leaders in Madras by a team sent by the Congress president. Moopanar had already sounded out Sonia in this regard, it is learnt. Though neither is in a hurry to take the plunge, the TMC leadership realises that if it is keen on a Third Front, it has to move fast.

Explains the party leader, "Other than preparing the cadres and the voters, we also have to convince prospective allies."

The TMC's believes that the new-generation voter is ready to try out someone other than the Dravidian heavyweights - Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna DMK.

With the Congress' reputation in the state mostly intact, and by reviving memories of the 'Kamaraj rule' of the fifties and the early sixties, the TMC hopes to capitalize on the clean image of Moopanar and the reputation of leaders such as former union finance minister P Chidambaram.

Interestingly, its hopes have been revived by the success of the 'Vajpayee wave' in the state in two consecutive parliamentary elections in the last two years. "It enabled the AIADMK's comeback in 1998 and the rival DMK's success the very next year. Other electoral logic and claims have been proved wrong," the TMC leader said.

It is not to be taken as automatic voter-support for the Bharatiya Janata Party but a reflection on the voter's willingness to accept fresh faces and themes. It showed the willingness of the Tamil voter to turn away from the Dravidian parties and try the 'nationalist way', the TMC leader explained. In the context of state politics, this would mean greater acceptance for the TMC than the BJP, which will only be playing second fiddle to its partner, the ruling DMK.

Simultaneously, the Tamil voter has become disenchanted with the DMK government and his honeymoon with the 'Vajpayee phenomenon' too may have begun to sour. However, since assembly elections are only nine months away the voter will be reluctant to recall the AIADMK so soon, is how the TMC views the emerging scenario.

The voter needs to be reassured that the party that he votes for is better than the available alternative. For example, in the 1971 assembly elections, the voters did not turn back to the Congress, which had been thrown out only four years earlier, despite an anti-DMK wave. Some years later, they gave a chance to the AIADMK founded by the late M G Ramachandran. Only after his demise did voters give another chance to the Congress.

"The mood of the new-generation voter is apparent from the results of the last two Lok Sabha elections. If we fail him now - and that includes even the BJP to an extent - he may be attracted to the new breed of political outfits, which harp on casteist politics, to express his disenchantment," the TMC leader summed up.

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