{"id":28970,"date":"2014-03-24T16:44:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T20:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28970"},"modified":"2014-03-24T17:04:55","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T21:04:55","slug":"associating-with-karunanidhis-son-azhagiri-and-mdmk-leader-vaiko-gopalaswamy-in-tamil-nadu-can-cause-problems-for-bjp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28970","title":{"rendered":"Associating with Karunanidhi’s son Azhagiri and MDMK Leader Vaiko Gopalaswamy in Tamil Nadu Can Cause Problems for BJP."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

N Sathiya Moorthy.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bharatiya Janata Party\u2019s ally and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko and former Union minister M K Alagiri are at the centre of a storm, which if fanned well by the National Democratic Alliance\u2019s electoral competition, has the potential to rock the boat in 40 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.<\/p>\n

Having hit the campaign trail a little late owing to seat-sharing talks with regional and sub-regional allies after Narendra Modi had given the party a head-start with two massive rallies at Tiruchi and Chennai, the BJP-NDA now has ended up giving in to the temperament and temptations of the likes of Vaiko.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Vaiko\u2019s demanded in his party manifesto the rechristening of the nation as the \u2018United States of India\u2019. The intention was not just about name-changing. It was more about changing the character of what\u2019s at best a quasi-federal Union into a genuine federal state.<\/p>\n

Vaiko\u2019s demand found a ready reverberation from BJP state president Pon Radhakrishnan who is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Kanyakumari. He declared that a BJP government at the Centre would have India\u2019s name changed as \u2018Bharatham\u2019 in Tamil.<\/p>\n

It is unclear if on a sensitive and serious matter such as this one, he had the clearance of the national leadership of the party, particularly that of Modi, the prime ministerial candidate. Or, will it go the way of the BJP\u2019s flexible position on issues such as Article 370 and \u2018uniform civil code\u2019, among others — that is if for now the national leadership backs Radhakrishnan\u2019s demand.<\/p>\n

Vaiko\u2019s other manifesto demands include even more controversial proposals. He has been demanding a referendum in Sri Lanka\u2019s Tamil areas for the possible formation of a \u2018separate nation\u2019, like most Dravidian parties. <\/p>\n

Needless to say, these are very serious issues over which Vaiko has had even more serious differences with the BJP and the Congress leaders in the past. He had either quit the government, or had stayed away from joining it.<\/p>\n

With the BJP declaring that they would have all alliance partners in the government if the NDA won the elections, it raises questions about Vaiko\u2019s future position. Whether any insistence on his part to include his party\u2019s known positions on a future common minimum programme would make a difference, also remains to be seen. Or, will it be that he and his party would choose to stay out of any future NDA government.<\/p>\n

Together, the two issues will flag more questions on the continued loyalty of a \u2018sensitive\u2019 ally like the MDMK and the consequently stability of any government, should other allies, take their cue from the Tamil Nadu partner.<\/p>\n

Queuing up for Alagiri<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vaiko created another flutter by meeting Alagiri. Following in Vaiko\u2019s footsteps, among others, was BJP\u2019s H Raja, who is facing Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram\u2019s son Karti in Sivaganga.<\/p>\n

Raja, a chartered accountant, incidentally, had pushed Chidambaram, then the candidate of the now-defunct Tamil Maanila Congress, to third place in the 1999 polls. As if the MDMK and BJP were not enough, the Congress\u2019 Bharath Natchiyappan too queued up to Azhagiri\u2019s Madurai residence for an audience.<\/p>\n

Faced with stiff multi-cornered contests, what with Kejriwal\u2019s Aam Aadmi Party too throwing in tough candidates like the Koodamkulam protest leader S P Udayakumar in Kanyakumari, with the Communist parties and the Congress too having traditional vote-shares in the southern constituencies, neither Vaiko nor Radhakrishnan could afford to miss those extra votes that Alagiri could muster for them, by splitting the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.<\/p>\n

Despite being suspended from the DMK, Alagiri\u2019s purported relevance flows from the votes that his rebel candidates could muster in the 2001 assembly polls under near-similar circumstances, contributing to the defeat of the official DMK nominees in around eight constituencies near Madurai.<\/p>\n

BJP leader L Ganesan, contesting the prestigious South Chennai seat, has backed Raja meeting Alagiri.<\/p>\n

J Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu chief minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader, will not keep quiet on the issue. Jaya can be expected to rake up the issue, asking the BJP in general and Modi in particular to answer charges on the Tamil Nadu BJP hobnobbing with Alagiri.<\/p>\n

State BJP leaders expect Modi to address another round of campaign rallies in Tamil Nadu, particularly in Radhakrishnan\u2019s Kanyakumari and possibly Coimbatore, if not South Chennai. Voters, particularly the urban middle-class BJP sympathisers of the past two decades, and the more-recent first-time voter-supporters of the party, would expect Modi then to respond to the opposition\u2019s salvos.<\/p>\n

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is director, Chennai chapter of the Observer Research Foundation.This article appears in Rediff.com)<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By N Sathiya Moorthy. The Bharatiya Janata Party\u2019s ally and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko and former Union minister M K Alagiri are at the centre of a storm, which if fanned well by the National Democratic Alliance\u2019s electoral competition, has the potential to rock the boat in 40 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Associating with Karunanidhi’s son Azhagiri and MDMK Leader Vaiko Gopalaswamy in Tamil Nadu Can Cause Problems for BJP.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28972,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28970\/revisions\/28972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}