The six-party alliance crafted by the BJP president Rajnath Singh in Tamil Nadu seems likely to make an impressive debut in the upcoming Parliamentary elections, winning anywhere between six to 15 seats, depending on local micro-variables. This is possibly the first election in which the smaller parties in the State did not join coalitions led either by the Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK or the former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s DMK, thereby creating an opening into which the BJP moved in and made the contest trilateral. Tamil Nadu and Puducherry vote on April 24, 2014.
Tamil Nadu has seen a surge of public sentiment in favour of the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who addressed a huge rally in Tiruchi in September 2013 and another at Chennai in February 2014. This doubtless helped seal the pre-poll alliance which reportedly commands 25 to 30 per cent vote share. The alliance fructified after the Chief Minister brutally torpedoed the Third Front being crafted by the Left parties, even as the DMK failed to unite under the leadership of MK Stalin. The result is that there is a perceptible lack of political animosity towards the BJP from Jayalalithaa, Karunanidhi and his estranged son MK Alagiri, who has committed to work for the parties in the BJP alliance.
Observers believe that this gives the BJP alliance a fighting chance in several seats. Besides the BJP, the front includes Vijayakanth’s Desiya Murpokku Dravidar Kazhagam (DMDK), S Ramadoss’ Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Vaiko’s Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (MDMK), the Inthiya Jananayaka Katchi (IJK), and the Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi (KMDK).
A seventh party, the Indian Makkal Kazhakam founded by Dr T Devanathan and representing the Yadava community, is not contesting the elections. It has a good following in Virudunagar, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Tiruvannamalai and Kanchipuram.
Actor Vijayakanth’s DMDK has a wide support base comprising 8 to 10 per cent vote share. The DMDK has possibly made the BJP alliance stronger than the DMK in the northern and western parts of the State. In the 2011 elections, it emerged as the opposition party in the State Assembly, winning 29 seats against the DMK’s 23.
The PMK gets its core support from the Vanniyar community, while the KMDK, founded by ER Eswaran, mainly represents the Gounder community that is predominant in the Kongu region comprising of Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Salem, Namakkal, Pollachi (central and west Tamil Nadu). The MDMK founded by Vaiko does not have any caste as its core vote base, but is a Tamil chauvinist party that supports the BJP on grounds that it would have handled the Sri Lanka Tamil’s issue better. In recent times, Vaiko has suffered major erosion in his popularity and his principal lieutenants have joined the DMK or AIADMK.
The IJK was founded by TR Pachamuthu alias Pariventhar, the founder Chancellor of SRM University and owner of a television news channel and a weekly magazine. Its core support derives from the Parkava Kulam caste Udayar community. The party has been in alliance with the BJP since the last Assembly elections.
The seats in which the alliance is believed to be strong include: BJP – Kanyakumari (Pon Radhakrishnan), Coimbatore (CP Radha Krishnan), South Chennai (L Ganeshan), Sivaganga (H Raja), Ramanathapuram (Kuppuramu); DMDK – Salem (L K Sudheesh), Namakkal (SK Vel), Villupuram-SC (K Umashankar), Tiruppur (N Dineshkumar), Kallakurichi (VP Eswaran) and Trichy; PMK – Dharmapuri, Chidambaram, Arakonam; MDMK – Erode (Ganesa Murthy), Virudnagar (Vaiko) and Kanchipuram (Mallai Sathya); and KMDK Pollatchi. Some candidates have yet to be finalised. The IJK is not regarded as being in a strong position, according to observers.
BJP president Rajnath Singh also successfully pulled Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy into the party alliance and gave the lone Lok Sabha seat from the Union Territory to his All India NR Congress, which it assigned to former Assembly Speaker R Radhakrishnan. This has given a major jolt to the Congress.
Meanwhile, Alagiri, who has been suspended from the DMK, has decided to go on a State-wide tour and galvanise his supporters in favour of the BJP alliance. Since MK Stalin is not too concerned about the Lok Sabha elections, observers believe that wherever the DMK is perceived as weak by its supporters, they will find it easier to transfer allegiance to the BJP coalition and improve its chances.
All this has left the Congress in a particularly vulnerable position, along with the Left parties that were left in the lurch by the AIADMK supremo. This explains why Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, and Union Shipping Minister GK Vasan have opted out of the race. It is pertinent that Vasan has refused to fight even though his Rajya Sabha term ends in June 2014.
Niticentral.com, 25 March 2014
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/03/25/bjp-set-to-win-big-in-tamil-nadu-203387.html