No peace for Stalin in J&K of Tamil Nadu politics

No peace for Stalin in J&K of Tamil Nadu politics

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 03:06 PM IST
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Chennai : In a State where Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi are infamously dubbed as the ‘J&K of Tamil Nadu Politics’, it is rare for the Dravidian rivals to see eye to eye on any issue.

In that backdrop the State’s people were surprised on Monday when DMK heir-apparent M K Stalin, who is set to take over as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, turned up to attend the swearing in ceremony of AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa, his father M Karunanidhi’s sworn political enemy, as Chief Minister for a sixth time. However, upon turning up at the venue of the swearing in ceremony, the Centenary Auditorium of the University of Madras, Stalin found that he was allocated a seat in the 10throw.

Without making a fuss, Stalin, who is keen on changing the political culture of the State and has undergone an image makeover as a friendly politician who goes out of the way to meet people, diligently occupied his seat. Soon after the ceremony he also tweeted: “Attended the swearing in of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. Congrats to Selvi J. Jayalalitha once again. Hope that she fulfils her election promises and works hard for the people of TN. I wish her the best.”

However, his father was hardly pleased by the seating arrangement. Noting that actor Sarath Kumar, a former DMK MP who has since sided with Jayalalithaa, was given a seat in the front row, despite having been defeated in the just concluded elections, the 92-year-old Karunanidhi saw this as an insult to his party.

In a curt statement, Karunanidhi, said Stalin who would head the 89-member strong DMK MLAs in the Assembly, was made to sit as “one among the crowd” whereas Sarath Kumar was given a seat in the front row. “This has been done deliberately to insult the DMK. It reveals that Jayalalithaa has not reformed and neither will she reform in the future. Only the people of Tamil Nadu have to reform.”

Incidentally, Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Jayalalithaa’s close aide Sasikala and her family members were seated in the front row.

While during the times of political stalwarts like K Kamaraj, C N Annadurai and M G Ramachandran, Tamil Nadu had a healthy political culture, where rivals would be cordial, since 1987 (after MGR’s death), the DMK and AIADMK leaders don’t share any bonhomie. Consequently, Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa have avoided attending the swearing in ceremonies of each other. They have come face-to-face only twice, both briefly, in the last 25 years.

The animosity between them is so deep that it trickles down to the party cadres. An AIADMK MLA and actor S Ve Shekar fell out of favour after Karunanidhi was invited to his family function by his relative, who was a bureaucrat.

In the past, when the AIADMK Government extended an invitation to Karunanidhi for the World Tamil Conference in the early nineties, he was referred to as an “ex-MLA” and not as “ex-Chief Minister.”

So, it came as a surprise when the Government invited Stalin and it was a greater surprise that he turned up for the swearing in ceremony.

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