The art of prudence, imprudence

Chennai

Right from October 1972 when MGR broke ranks with DMK and floated AIADMK to Tuesday’s near split in the DMDK, Tamil Nadu has seen a host of defections and splits in political parties of various sizes, mostly spearheaded by one or two individuals, and that too due to personal differences with their party leadership.
 
Even Vaiko, who alleges that DMK had paid Rs 3 crore per DMDK rebel, did the same. He had quit the DMK along with 13 district secretaries in 1993 by levelling the same accusation — lack of inner party democracy — against M Karunanidhi. To present facts as they were, Vaiko, the then DMK election in charge, had parted ways only over Stalin’s rise in the party.

Soon to follow was G K Moopanar who had floated Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) in 1996, objecting to P V Narasimha Rao forging an alliance with AIADMK. TMC ended up joining same Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK five years later in 2001. His son G K Vasan, who had merged TMC with Congress in 2002 and enjoyed the fruits of UPA I and II for a decade, revived the TMC in November 2014 only over flimsy grounds unworthy of a mention. The most recent party splits happened a few months ago when Thammeemun Ansari of MMK raised the banner of revolt against party president M.H. Jawahirullah, believed to be done at the behest of AIADMK.

Even Vijayakant’s DMDK was formed with disgruntled members from other parties. Pertinently, ‘Captain’ is as much to blame as the dissidents for him looking deep down the barrel. While one has to give serious thought to Chandrakumar’s forecast that Karunanidhi would return to power, his accusation that Vijayakant ignores cadre for family cannot be discounted either. Dravidian scholar K Thirunavukkarasu says; “In avoiding public appearance and deputing his wife Premalatha, Vijayakant has only lent credence to the rebels’ allegations. Though the rebels leave enough to suspect by not taking to warpath immediately after the recent district secretaries’ meet, Vijayakant has also played into their hands by keeping everything a hushhush affair. Vijayakant will go down as another actor-politician like Bhagyaraj and T Rajendar who failed in imitating an inexplicable God-like mystery called MGR.” He attributed Vaiko’s anger to his DMDK- PWF idea suffering a setback. “Why did critics not accuse AIADMK when it poached DMDK MLAs and split MMK and AISMK? If Jayalalithaa does it to win elections, it is lauded as strategy. But if we (DMK) do, we are  branded unethical,” argued a DMK senior requesting anonymity.