Taking
political stock in Tamil Nadu of the year 2009 that has gone by, English
dailies published reviews in the last few days of the last year. The report in
‘The
Times
of India’
on December 30 was given the headline “String of election victories keep
Karunanidhi smiling”. ‘The New Indian Express’ on December 30 published the
report under the caption ‘DMK, Congress consolidate their positions’ and the
daily ‘Deccan Chronicle’ published its review on December 31 under the heading
‘DMK rules the roost’. Of course, these reports primarily dealt with the
stellar performance of the DMK alliance in the Lok Sabha elections in the month
of May last year and in the eight by-elections to different Assembly
constituencies and the humbling of the opposition parties in the hustings. For
obvious reasons they avoided making an objective political analysis underlying
the remarkable electoral victories of the DMK and its alliance and the drubbing
faced by the opposition.
Chief
Minister and DMK President Kalaignar M.Karunanidhi presented, obliquely of
course, a dispassionate political analysis for the flying colours of his rule
and the decline of the opposition parties. Addressing a function in Chennai on
the New Year Day to mark the inauguration of the Rs.256-crore scheme of
distribution of dhotis and saris free to people on the occasion of Pongal and
Tamil New Year, Kalaignar said the DMK government is willing to rectify its
defects, if pointed out in a constructive manner. Reiterating that no
government could be fully free of shortcomings, he said hurling charges just
for the sake of it wasn’t true democracy. Pointing out mistakes as and when
they were detected and correcting them was the spirit of democracy. Those who
criticize the government for its mistakes should cooperate and work with it to
rectify them. Instead of adopting such an attitude, if some try to magnify the
mistakes and destabilize the government, they would not succeed.
That
precisely is the reason for the dismal performance of the opposition parties in
all the elections since the DMK came to power. The proof of pudding is in the
eating. In a democracy, the proof of the bonafide intentions and conduct of a
political party can be judged only by their acceptability for the people. In
electoral politics, a ruling party and the opposition do not stand on even
playing field; while the ruling party requires superlative accomplishments and
constant contact with the masses to impress the voters, the opposition parties
have the advantage of just criticizing and pulling up the government for its
failures. That, despite the disadvantage, the DMK is on winning spree and the
opposition parties find themselves in gloom, speak for the extra-ordinary
achievements of the DMK government that are being experienced and felt by every
section of the society in day to day life which make them keep reminded of the
benefits; and in contrast the opposition parties frittering away the inherent
electoral advantage by their recklessness thereby irritating the people.
For
instance, take the main opposition party the ADMK and its supremo Jayalalitha. Instead
of playing an active and constructive role as the Leader of the Opposition, she
sojourns in the cool comforts of her Kodanad estate ‘palace’ for most of the
days in a year inaccessible even to her party functionaries. Nevertheless there
is no paucity of daily statements in her name – most of the issues she raises
relate to local bodies, like drinking water supply, drainage, roads, street
lights etc., for which a ward secretary or village secretary of her outfit can
resort to action if at all the grievances were true. When occasionally she
raises larger issues having statewide or countrywide ramifications, they
invariably tend to be absurd or sheer figment of imagination or borrowed ad
verbatim from the articles or news reports published in English dailies. The
guiding principle of her politics and practices, as one can discern from her
statements and actions ever since she entered public life, seems to be blindly
opposing everything Kalaignar states and performs. Her words and deeds suggest
that she is a fit case for a psychiatric therapy for perennial paranoia of
Kalaignar.
Or
else which sane person would state that the epidemic chikungunya was caused by
children consuming eggs (supplied under Nutritious Meal Scheme) laid by chicken
which are fed with PDS rice distributed at Rs.2 per kg (earlier and now at Re. One)
and the elders get the disease infected from the milk drawn from cows which are
given ration rice as cattle feed? But
Jayalalitha dared to issue such an idiotic statement and a dutiful media also
published her statement without any discretion.
During
her campaign for the 2006 Assembly elections, she alleged that Kalaignar was
duping the people by promising to give free colour television sets, which she
claimed was impossible to accomplish. But when an all-party committee was
constituted and it decided on the tenders submitted and an announcement of
distribution of CTVs was made in just over two months after the DMK government
assumed office, Jayalalitha raised doubts on the quality of free TV sets. On
the announcement regarding the selection of firms for supply of the TV sets, she
wondered that given the price mentioned it was doubtful whether the sets would
be of good quality. She said she was at a loss to understand why the DMK
government chose to go in for national competitive bidding in the first phase
and international open competitive bidding in the next phase. She also said
there was no proper answer to the question as to how many persons would be
given the colour TV sets. She asked how would the beneficiaries be able to view
programmes (on different channels) and whether the government would pay for the
cable connections.
Having
initially ruling out the possibility of implementing the scheme, she had no
qualms in raising all these questions once the distribution of CTVs started! It
is the committee of legislators of all parties which opens the bids and decides
on the tenders. Jayalalitha refused to nominate her party representative to the
committee but she can verify the transparency and genuineness of the selection
of firms from the representatives of her alliance parties in the committee. Later
she also alleged that there were complaints of the free CTVs bursting under
high voltage power. For all her doubts about the quality of the TV sets she can
as well verify from her party cadre who have received them, over 90 lakh CTVs
have been distributed so far and by March this year 1.3 crore sets would be
distributed and by the month of December all ration card holders in the State
would have received them. There are absolutely no complaints on the quality of
the TV sets or grumblings over viewing programmes on different channels. Jayalalitha
will do well visiting a slum in the city or any hamlet in the state and see for
herself how people enjoy viewing the CTVs. It is for hurting the self-esteem of
millions of people who eat Re. One a kg. rice by calling it as cattle feed and
for casting aspersions in the free CTV scheme which they enjoy in their day to
day life, that the people taught Jayalalitha lessons repeatedly in by-elections
and in Lok Sabha election. But senseless, simple-minded and empty-headed
Jayalalitha does not seem to be learning any lesson and keeps deceiving her
simpleton folk and herself of an end to the DMK rule and her returning to power.
Jayalalitha
once accused BJP leader L.K.Advani of suffering from ‘selective amnesia’. But
now she is proving to be suffering from total amnesia or believing that the
people of Tamil Nadu as a whole were suffering from that mental illness. Or
else, having issued order banning recruitment in government services and
recruiting nearly one lakh school teachers on contract basis on paltry
consolidated pays, how does she dare to issue a statement alleging out of her
imagination that the DMK government was contemplating to fill up all the ‘two
lakh vacancies’ by recruiting retired government employees on contract basis. Kalaignar
has given a fitting reply laying bare her folly.
Jayalalitha
had been a staunch opponent of the struggle for Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka and
was echoing the voice of Sri Lankan establishment publicly until January 17
last year while addressing a press meet. But within weeks, sensing electoral
benefits in the Lok Sabha polls, she took the avtar of Eelam liberator and
campaigned promising to ‘send Indian army’ and secure Tamil Eelam. But the
people betrayed her expectation and once again punished her for her blatant, shameless
and rudimentary opportunism.
Another
perennial pessimist, who even while remaining in the DMK alliance and enjoying
the fruits of power for his party, was constantly cutting at the roots of the
spirit of alliance, is PMK founder-leader Dr. S.Ramadoss. Notwithstanding the
extra-ordinary equanimity and courtesy extended by Kalaignar, Ramadoss everyday
spoke in a derogatory manner which sought to ruin DMK’s self-respect. He made
fun of and bitterly opposed all schemes and projects the DMK government implemented
and sought publicity by giving an impression that the DMK government was
against people. Unlike the indifferent
manner in which Jayalalitha treated him when he was in alliance with
ADMK, Kalaignar patiently offered detailed explanations to every query and
doubt raised by him everyday. The PMK leader cast aspersions on the much
acclaimed Industrial policy of the DMK government calling it ‘inequitable and
jobloss oriented’ and said there was no transparency in the selection of the
implementing agency for the Kalaignar Insurance for Life Saving Treatments, whereas
a transparent system was followed in which most of the insurance companies in
the country, both in government and private sector participated and through
this process the premium amount was fixed. Ramadoss tried to scuttle some
farsighted projects like a satellite city near Chennai, Chennai airport
expansion and a thermal power project in Cuddalore district.
One
common feature among Jayalalitha, Ramadoss and actor-politician Vijayakanth is
the intonation of audacity and arrogance in their speeches and statements, an
anathema to democratic polity. Commenting on the two year performance of the
DMK government, Ramadoss had the temerity to state that it had not passed the
examination in any field. On the contrary the people of the State had given
centum to the DMK in all the examinations (elections) it faced while giving a
big ‘zero’ for Ramadoss’ party for its negative politics. People saw him as of
‘nuisance value’.
About
the part-time politician Vijayakanth, the less said the better. Over 4 years of
his foolhardy-filmy valour has brought him to the brink of extinction by his
candidates losing deposits in by-elections. He is a paper-tiger, a making of
the media. It is time he realized the lesson of thespian Sivaji Ganesan, who in
1989 was misled by the media-boosting, ventured to put up his candidates in all
Assembly constituencies and facing a humiliating rout with himself coming third
in his home-constituency Tiruvaiyaru. A senior journalist of an English daily
then told him, ‘we (the media) will bring you to the centre of the road and
leave you there; it is upto you to manage thereafter.’
About
the communist parties, both CPI and CPM are accustomed to commit ‘historical
blunders’ and admit it on later days in self-critical reviews. Their present
positions can only be regretted. The likes of MDMK’s Vaiko do not merit
consideration.
The
attitude of destructive criticism, nay cynicism, of the leaders of the
opposition parties in Tamil Nadu, had landed them in political quagmire. A
seasoned democrat and statesman par excellence, Kalaignar is not exhilarated
over the disarray of the opposition but is seriously and sincerely concerned of
healthy democratic polity in Tamil Nadu and hence his dispassionate appeal on
the New Year Day!
(10-01-10)
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