Seeded clouds cleared of sky

For over six months now a section of the media in Tamil Nadu was working overtime on creating a wedge between the PMK and Congress and carry the latter to the side of their much-pampered ‘political wizard’ Jayalalitha, who too was carried away by their systematic campaign and till recently anxiously looking forward for the ‘final break.’

It was on this huge hope that she offered her party’s unsolicited  and unconditional support to the Congress if it dropped the DMK on 2G spectrum issue and also assured the support of some other parties, which she never identified. The offer was cold shouldered by the Congress which reiterated that the DMK is a valued constituent of the UPA and even snubbed her saying ‘there is no vacancy in the UPA.’

She made several overt gestures to woo the Congress. Once, she advised the national party ‘to take off its hands’ (election symbol of Congress) from the DMK to save itself from drowning. At a public meeting in Tiruchy, she said it was time “to join hands” to overthrow the DMK from power. She gave hopes to her party cadre in her party’s general council meeting that she would forge an alliance of their desire after giving enough hints of a possible alliance with the Congress. When it ultimately became very clear that there was no chance of her desire to fructify, she declared that she had never announced an alliance with the Congress, reminding the story of the fox and sour grapes.

In the sub-plot of the political drama that this section of the media was scripting for sometime earlier, it was speculated the part-time politician Vijayakanth’s DMDK would forge a formidable alliance against both the DMK and ADMK in alliance with the Congress and some other like-minded parties. The story was so unscrupulous to suggest that the leading party of the coalition government at the Centre would strike with a political novice whose outfit has no bearing in Parliament or in national politics. Equally unscrupulous the actor-politician also deluded himself in the fantasy of the impossible. When he woke up he found himself being carried towards the lady who accused him of going drunk to the Assembly. But it was too late for him to upstage the on-going drama and it seems he has left the things develop in the already scripted direction. Like Jayalalitha, he has also started attacking the Centre and Congress. He had said that Kalaignar had gone to Delhi not to pursue the interests of Tamil Nadu but that of his party. Kalaignar is not only the Chief Minister but also the President of DMK.

Kalaignar successfully accomplished his tasks on hand both as Chief Minister and DMK President. During his meeting with the Prime Minister all his demands for Tamil Nadu got positive response. External Affairs Minister Thiru S.M.Krishna and Foreign Secretary Tmt. Nirupama Rao met him and apprised him of the talks held by the latter in Sri Lanka on the issue of safeguarding Tamil Nadu fishermen and on Lankan Tamils. Home Minister Thiru P.Chidambaram, Union Agriculture Minister Thiru Sharad Pawar, Union Shipping Minister Thiru G.K.Vasan, Aviation Minister Thiru Vayalar Ravi called on him and had fruitful discussions. Kalaignar also called on AICC President Tmt. Sonia Gandhi and clinched the alliance with the Congress for the ensuing Assembly polls and a committee will be set up by her party for seat sharing talks, thus finally putting at rest all the speculative stories and scripting the climax act of the media’s drama with a tragic note.

But even while the rest of the motivated section of the media team to have relented a little, the diehard ‘The New Indian Express’ continues to be obstinate. Journalists circle in the capital are very well aware that Tmt. Sonia Gandhi was unwell and down with fever that she had to miss the Republic Day function which she never does. Congress spokesman Janardhan Dwivedi had informed this and said all her engagements remain cancelled. This news was published in all dailies. But for the ‘story’-writers (not journalists) of the TNIE based in New Delhi and Chennai all these facts are of no concern and the exceptional gesture of the AICC President receiving Kalaignar and holding talk with him for 45 minutes despite her indisposition was making him wait for 6 hours before meeting him. What an insensitive and senseless commentary? As if he is an inmate of 10, Janpath residence, the New Delhi story-writer gives a telltale account of the closed door meeting. The three different numbers that the two stories from New Delhi and Chennai as the number of seats purportedly demanded by the Congress themselves reveal the motivated slander of the daily. It is the media which describe Kalaignar as a ‘political chanakya’ and if the TNIE is unable to see through his way of getting round to fence-sitters it is the folly of the daily, which it how lavishly presents whenever writing about him. If only its wishful thinking turn true, the BJP-led NDA government should be ruling at the Centre reducing the Congress and its allies to dust.

There is a Tamil saying “The cat closing its eyes and calling the earth dark.’ But the likes of The New Indian Express are like the cat keeping its eyes wide open and still calling the earth dark.

Abetted by Jayalalitha and some rump politicians this section of the media seeded artificial clouds in the political sky of Tamil Nadu. By his political acumen Kalaignar cleared these seeded clouds of the political sky during his visit to the capital. The hurdles sought to be created was of no consequence. The hurdles sought to be created was of no consequence. That is the underlying meaning of Kalaignar’s crisp reply, “The sky was clear.... no hurdles on the way,” when asked about his trip to Delhi!