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Jayalalithaa queers her own pitch

A day after Tamil Nadu plunged into political turmoil over the arrest of former chief minister M Karunanidhi, son and Madras Mayor M K Stalin and Union ministers Murasoli Maran and T R Baalu, the state government is headed on a collision course with the Centre.

The imperious manner in which Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa went ahead with the arrests has claimed its first casualty, in TN Governor M Fathima Beevi.

The Vajpayee government has decided to recall the Governor for failing in the performance of her constitutional duties.

The National Democratic Alliance has in fact been gunning for Beevi ever since she invited, Jayalalithaa, with what many felt was undue haste, to form the government in May, following the Assembly elections that swept the AIADMK into power with an overwhelming majority.

Beevi’s reasoning then was that though Jayalalithaa had been barred from contesting the elections, she had in fact received an overwhelming popular verdict. Beevi argued that there was no need to mix the popular verdict with the corruption cases Jayalalithaa was fighting.

In the wake of the Saturday morning drama, political circles in TN believe that Jayalalithaa decided to swoop down on Karunandhi with the active support of the Governor. This feeling was heightened by the Governor's subsequent actions, in not reporting to the President and to the Centre and when finally compelled to do so, merely paraphrasing the state government's own version of the incidents.

Beevi is now on her way out, and that spells trouble for the 40-day old AIADMK government and more particularly, for Jayalalithaa herself. “She acted with arrogance, she thinks she can do anything because of her huge majority," DMK general secretary K Anbazhagan told rediff.com.

“But her victory in the elections has been turned into a farce. The people of Tamil Nadu are now regretting that she has been voted to power,” he added.

Was it miscalulation on the part of Jayalalithaa, who personally orchestrated the pre-dawn arrests? Her own partymen seem, increasingly, to think so.

“Things did not work out as we planned,” a senior AIADMK leader and Member of Parliament told rediff.com. “The government arrested Karunanidhi on Saturday night to ensure that he spends the weekend in jail, without getting quick bail. But somehow, things went wrong in the execution," he conceded.

However, the MP, and other leaders, argue that the prevailing situation will soon dissipate, and it will be business as usual. “Similar events took place when Jayalalithaa was arrested in 1996," the MP pointed out. "But the Karunanidhi government did not fall just because he arrested and put Jayalalitha behind the bars.”

But this time, there is a very real difference. The BJP leadership, which has never forgiven Jayalalithaa for pulling the rug out from under the Vajpayee government in 1999, has been quick to seize on its opportunity.

“Jayalalithaa acted foolishly and stupidly. She must have, at the least, waited for six months before considering such drastic action," pointed out a BJP leader, referring to the fact that the chief minister has still one major hurdle to surmount, namely standing for, and winning, an election to the Assembly.

That is the worry for the AIADMK now. The clock is ticking, and Jayalalithaa has less than 5 months to get re-elected. When she was jailed in 1996, there was an outpouring of sympathy for her, which she was quick to seize upon and exploit to spearhead her party to a brilliant win this May.

She has now handed over that same advantage -- many times magnified by the brutal execution of the arrests -- to the DMK.

“Jayalalithaa has destroyed all the pubic sympathy her party won in May," argues Madras-based political analyst G S Sekhar. "Now it will be a hard task for her to win in Assembly by-election.”

Jayalalithaa, perhaps more aware than most of the danger, attempted a damage control exercise by releasing a three page statement detailing the events leading to the arrest of Karunanidhi and others.

The dry prose of that statement, however, does not quite carry the weight of the images of violence that is repeatedly being flashed all over TN by Sun TV.

The images have built a weight of public opinion against her. And meanwhile, she has opened another front for herself by taking on Vajpayee, firstly by refusing to accept his calls and then saying in her statement that the PM had not attempted to contact her.

The upshot? The lady who, a month ago was sitting pretty with a rock-solid majority and a decimated political opinion, now finds herself engaged in a struggle for survival.

Karunanidhi's Arrest: The Complete Coverage

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