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BJP's ambitions may ignite AIADMK cadre fury

N Sathiya Moorthyin Tiruchi

The 'pandal' was massive and the entrance impressive. With glittering lighting, for full three-plus kilometres from the Tiruchi centre to the Bharatiya Janata Party state conference 'pandal', there were flag-posts and tubelights decorating the roadside.

Huge cutouts, the crude reminder of a bygone era, were back in position, with a lone difference for democratisation: earlier it used to be for only one person, now there were as many as there are leaders, known and unknown, in the state party.

For three days and more, the city of Tiruchi in central Tamil Nadu wore a festive look. A deserted look, too. The high-flying security of the state police, with central intelligence agencies in tow, ensured that the citizenry lived in a perpetual fear-of-the-unknown.

Doors remained locked, and the national highways connecting the north and the south of Tamil Nadu free of the usual heavy traffic. So also the suburban services. There were fewer private vehicles, four-wheelers, two-wheelers or even bicycles, than any other day.

Then, there was the exhibition by the Centre's Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity, on the first year achievements of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan inaugurated it, dubbing it un-DAVP like, and imaginative enough for other DAVP units to emulate.

He had a point. So imaginative was the exhibition that you had the red-and-green twin-colour of the BJP splashed across in good measure across the place, and the portraits of BJP leaders from Khushabhau Thakre to K N Govindacharya, from K N Lakshmanan to L Ganesan, both state-level leaders sharing space with Prime Minister Vajpayee to Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani to Energy Minister P Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, who is also the local MP.

What more, you also had party leaders, from Narendra Modi downwards gracing the occasion, and Civil Aviation Minister Anantha Kumar announcing a Rs 125 million developmental package for the Tiruchi airport.

If the idea is for the BJP, to strike deeper roots in Tamil Nadu, it has just begun. And if the idea is to replace the outlived Dravidian parties and the moribund Congress of whatever hue -- an idea spoken so very vocally from the conference dais, dampened only by the prime minister's cautious accommodation of the existing allies at the national-level -- the state BJP has begun well.

What better way of outdoing your political enemies, and friends, and outsmarting them in their own game? And the two-day, fourth state BJP conference bore witness to it all.

The BJP strategists seem to feel that the time is ripe for them to strike at the root of the Dravidian movement, for ushering in 'nationalist politics' to the state. They may have a point.

Successive elections have shown the core vote bank of the Dravidian majors, namely, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham, the BJP's ally at the national-level, sinking.

Now, they also concede, like their counterparts in the Congress and the Tamil Maanila Congress, that the 'non-committal vote bank' in Tamil Nadu is increasing in numbers with each passing election, and it was time for non-Dravidian, nationalist-minded parties to have a go at them.

While the TMC fancies itself as the best possible candidate for the job, the BJP now feels otherwise. The TMC, speaker after speaker at the Tiruchi meet, said was concerned only about making Sonia Gandhi prime minister, not about its own future in Tamil Nadu politics, or about the people of the state and their concerns.

The Congress in the state, the speakers said, was interested only in the properties in the possession of the TMC after the vertical split of 1996. So they see the BJP as the only party capable of ushering in a 'nationalist government' in the state.

True, the speakers focused their criticisms more on the DMK state government, on the law and order front in particular.

The continued activities of Islamic fundamentalist-terrorists, in the light of the Coimbatore blasts last year, provided the base. The state-level speakers were not wanting in their veiled criticism of the AIADMK ally.

It's another matter, how the AIADMK, or the 'more Dravidian' Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham, or the equally 'pan-Tamil' Pattali Makkal Katchi allies of the BJP would react to the new posturings of the state BJP leaders.

For its part, the AIADMK should feel threatened, politically. But the national situation, as also the personal situation in which its leaders, starting with party chief J Jayalalitha, has been placed, has forced it to look the other way.

Their future threat to the Dravidian parties may be real from the BJP's stand-point, but the AIADMK, if it chooses, may stop with hitting out at select leaders from the state party.

Both PMK founder S Ramadoss and MDMK chief Vaiko shared the dais with the prime minister at the public meeting on the evening of the second day, but they had only promises for keeping the Vajpayee government going for full five years.

No words yet on the state BJP's stand. If the BJP cadres were optimistic at the end of the first day, the prime minister's cautious appreciation of their future concerns the next day, has sort of dampened their soaring spirits.

By declaring that "there was no contradiction between the BJP's plans for strengthening itself in the state and for strengthening its existing alliance at the national level through further cooperation with its partners", Vajpayee did precisely expose those contradictions.

'Complementary', these two roles of the BJP should be, he said, but supplementary, at best, it would have to be, if the state party is to take its vision to its logical end.

The BJP has only to look at the political plight of the TMC, to draw its lessons from. The TMC, as may be recalled, has been talking about 'Kamaraj rule' under the leadership of party founder G K Moopanar after the next assembly elections.

But party leaders, from Moopanar downwards, have been ambiguous, at best, on achieving it in the company of their existing DMK ally.

The party cannot have 'Kamaraj rule' with the DMK around, but cannot do without the DMK in any snap polls to the Lok Sabha.

Like the TMC now antagonising the DMK cadres, if not the leaders, the BJP too may end up antagonising the AIADMK cadres by their confident appeal for a party rule in the state.

While the AIADMK leadership can appreciate the political compulsions of the BJP for making such claims, and may even be beholden to the Vajpayee government for coming to its rescue in the 'special courts case' and the rest, the cadre mood may be different.

"How then can you expect the 'complementary' role to exist?" asks a state BJP leader sympathetic to the AIADMK. "We are unnecessarily creating problems when all have been solved."

By declaring its political intentions for the future, the BJP has succeeded at least in keeping the MDMK on the right side. At least for the present, that is.

The AIADMK and the MDMK cannot co-exist as allies, given their reworked antagonisms in the post-poll scenario, and the latter was said to be keeping its TMC options open for a third front in the state.

But by hinting at a third front of its own, minus the DMK and the AIADMK, the BJP may have succeeded in luring the MDMK away from the TMC proposal. "But it's another matter, whether we can have the MDMK and the AIADMK together, or prefer MDMK over the AIADMK," says the state BJP leader.

The BJP's predicament becomes clearer when the PMK angle is put in perspective. While declaring continued support for the continuance of the Vajpayee government at the Centre for full five years, the PMK seems to prefer the AIADMK to the BJP for an electoral ally, if a choice had to be made.

Simultaneously, the PMK is keeping its other political options also open, given that the BJP has no base to call its own in its traditional strongholds.

While a BJP-MDMK combine has a strong base in the southern districts, that by itself may not be enough to win seats, not certainly the ''high 30 Lok Sabha seats from the state that made the Vajpayee government possible in the first place".

MDMK leaders also say that they feel comfortable in the company of the BJP, as "we both are sure about our ideological positions on various controversial issues, with no threat of each cutting into the other's political base in the state''.

''We thus will have to either gloss over controversial issues or work out solutions," the source said.

Interestingly, the MDMK had a sizeable presence in the BJP rally at Tiruchi, which was impressive, though not emotive or expressive.

BJP strategists say that they have entered the 'untested waters' of central Tamil Nadu with Vajpayee solving the much-entangled 'Cauvery waters issue' and the Vajpayee government taking up the much talked-about 'Sethusamudram project'.

Says a party leader: "We already have a strong presence in the southern districts, and the western districts, apart from pockets of influence in Madras and elsewhere. With the 'Cauvery waters agreement' and the Sethusamudram project, we have entered the DMK heartland with a bang. And early reports are encouraging."

Obviously, the BJP is providing for the AIADMK falling into bad times all over again. The state party is not happy with the events of the recent past, where its public image has been blurred by the "alleged high-handed actions involving Jayalalitha's name, and that of party MLA Thamaraikani, in assault cases."

Says one of them, "We have to be as cautious about our companions, as about our competitors. We cannot continue to think that the voter will always fall for our 'national agenda'. Where we have nothing new or different to offer, unlike last year, even for the Lok Sabha polls, the voter may be tempted to look nearer home for making his choice. There, we have to present a better, viable picture."

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